Worth upgrading or not?

[Disposed]

I have an olympus E-PL1 with a 14-42mm lens and a 40-150mm lens. I have been considering upgrading but dont want to spend a fortune.

Been looking at the canon SL1 that comes with an extra 50-300mm lens for $550. I can probably get a couple hundred out of my old set would this be a worthy upgrade? The viewfinder and much better manual controls make it very appealing to me, the more i learn about this the more i hate my surrent camera with no viewfinder and crap manual controls.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Hard to say. A lot of people really like Olympus' system. If you want to know for sure before you commit, go rent.
If you can't rent then go to a camera store and tool around with the camera for a few hours. Sure some sales people might get annoyed, but if the goal is saving cash, save the cash.

The key here is that no one can really tell you what system is right for you. Because something you hate, someone else loves, and vice versa.

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For what it's worth, I like the SL1. However, I wouldn't use it in the way you suggest. I personally would be interested in it with usage of Canon's pancake lenses, of which they have 2: a 24mm and a 40mm.
Pairing it with a small lightweight lens makes it discrete (great for travel photography, street photography, and so on). Pairing it with a large lens to me defeats the purpose of using Canon's smallest lightweight dSLR offering.
I would probably have the 24mm f/2.8 STM more or less glued to the SL1 (38.4mm equivalent) and call it a day.

If you want to use larger lenses and have it be more balanced with the body, I would suggest buying a 'slightly' larger Rebel T-series body. This isn't to say you couldn't use larger lenses on the SL1. It would simply be a less enjoyable experience with massive lens dive.
Check used. T4i/T5i can be had relatively cheaply on the second hand market.

 

[Daggah]

Moving from a micro 4/3 sensor to a Canon APS-C sensor is hardly much of an upgrade.

 

[Disposed]

So I ended up going to the store and trying some out. Ended up leaving with the d3300 kit they had.

I understand that technically it's not a big upgrade but having an actual viewfinder with easier to access controls is so much nicer. No longer solely reliant on a tiny screen that's really hard to see in brighter light for setting up a shot. No longer have to dig through menus to change basic DSLR settings like ISO and aperture.

Really hard to learn all this with that Olympus.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Congrats on the move to the d3300. It's a really solid entry level camera. It's definitely feature rich and will serve you well.