jhnkng

Well, the OP also already said that he is pulling triple duty as director, DP and operator... so anybody who has ever done anything similar would know that one less thing to worry about is useful.
So I would say AF is important in this scenario. I never used Sony PDAF but I know Canon DPAF has been described as having a Hollywood focus puller following you on set... to me that sounds pretty damn useful if you’re also worried about lighting, camera movement, composition, actor’s performances. Hell, the time saved marking the floor is worth its weight in gold in that scenario.
The good thing about AF is you don’t have to use it, but if you don’t have it, you can never use it.
With that being said, AF doesn’t automatically beat codec and codec doesn’t beat AF. Now if he/she were to come back and post that he is making a feature film to try and get distributed, then codec would probably win. If he is working on some short films for festivals but mostly for the web, AF may be more important.
Personally, if I were him/her, I’d go with the GH5. Since he/she has shot with the DVX200, possibly in vLogL, the GH5 may be a logical transition. It will give a good beefy, 10bit codec for grading and it will offer some AF that could be used for tracking shots. It’s not perfect AF but in a pinch it can help with difficult shots where movement, composition and performance are also critical. The IBIS is another plus.

Hopefully it will have real WiFi rather than only Snapbridge
 
https://www.diyphotography.net/give-us-back-wi-fi-open-letter-nikon/

You must be the one other person besides me who bought an AF100. It was the first affordable large sensor camcorder. I bought it at launch & had such high hopes of it replacing my GH3 & Canon 5D2s but unfortunately I hated it. I was so grateful when the C300 launched & I was able to replace the AF100. This really was a great large sensor camcorder with lovely image & colours & great ergonomics. The C300 was (& still is) an amazing camera. My circumstances changed & I no longer own the C300 but if I were still in the market for a camcorder it would be a C200 for 4K or a C100 for HD. The difference in ergonomics between the GH5 & Cx00 are night & day.

Yes.  4k is NOT needed for every job and sometimes you need a workhorse to get the job done camera that can perform multipurpose duty and pull solid image.   Long battery life, NDs, auto focus, wifi browser control, XLRs, SD dual sd cards, and ergonomically a breeze to use.  
 

I've mounted my C100mk2 with the 24mm pancake on a Crane 2 and it's ok, but the height of the camera and the evf gets in the way of tilts. It's quite a nice way to work, I usually have it mounted on a monopod so I can put it down when I need to.
I'm constantly surprised by the ergonomics of it in the hand, it really is lovely to use. All the buttons are where you need them and right where your fingers are. It's pretty compact if you take the side handle off as well, it's *almost* discreet

I love my C100mk2, I wouldn't give it up unless I was getting a C200 or C300mk2. If you shoot solo or very small crew, having dependable AF is life changing. The audio sounds pretty darn good as well, and having both a decent screen and decent EVF that swivels makes life easier when working outside or in. Files look great out of the box so it's great for fast turnaround stuff, and C-Log grades pretty well considering the gimped codec, which actually turns out to be a blessing because a 128gb card lasts all day, and it shoots backup to a second slot. A lot of the time I go out with the camera with 2 x 128gb and 2 x batteries and I can shoot all day without worrying about downloading or data management. I can complain all day about Canon, but the one thing they got right with the C series cameras is that it gets out of the way and lets you get on with shooting.
That said, I have fairly specific requirements. If you work with a larger crew, or if you're not working on paid jobs, there are probably better options. I shoot Fuji for stills so I have an X-T2 which goes on the gimbal, but a GH5s is certainly an excellent option that I would consider as a gimbal cam if I needed it. If I'm going to be on me feet all day I tend to hire an EasyRig (excellent combo with the C100mk2) but you're not exactly discreet -- so if discretion is required you definitely don't want a C100. 

Again, there's no doubt Sony is at the forefront of sensor tech, but the D850 sensor combines all the good stuff across the A7R3 and the A9, so I wouldn't say that Sony is the only game in town. 
I do shoot RAW, and I am talking about RAW. There is a subtle but noticeable difference in the way Fuji RAWs handle colour that is different from other manufacturers, this is true for LR and Capture One. 

Again, there's no doubt Sony is at the forefront of sensor tech, but the D850 sensor combines all the good stuff across the A7R3 and the A9, so I wouldn't say that Sony is the only game in town. 
I do shoot RAW, and I am talking about RAW. There is a subtle but noticeable difference in the way Fuji RAWs handle colour that is different from other manufacturers, this is true for LR and Capture One. 

Are you going to hire, or buy? For the cost of an A9 body you could have a Fuji X body with a lens or three. If you're hiring, the A9 is a pretty easy choice, I know a guy who shoots on TV sets and loves everything about his A9. 
On the other hand this guy shoots Fuji on set:
https://www.fujirumors.com/behind-the-x-gear-meet-barry-wetcher-the-x-shooter-who-brings-fujifilm-to-hollywood/

For the record I shoot Fuji, but I don't do on set stills work. I pair my X-Pro2 with an X100F and it's great. The X100F is basically silent by default, the leaf shutter is barely audible, which is perfect when I'm shooting weddings and speeches and the like.

The Sigma 17-50 f2.8 worked pretty well when I had a BMMCC. Not as nice optically as the 18-35 art, but that extra range came in handy.

The Sigma 17-50 f2.8 worked pretty well when I had a BMMCC. Not as nice optically as the 18-35 art, but that extra range came in handy.

Besides the quick edits, cool location and amazing model help. Imagine it with a fat chick. ?
Digital Bolex on a shoulder rig would probably give a better version of what this is trying to be. 

Procrastination is your body telling you you need a break. Seriously, take the day off, force yourself to go enjoy something else guilt free. But when you come back to it you just need to force yourself to focus on the task. But break each task down to manageable chunks and give yourself small breaks in between. Your creative energy is finite and needs to be replenished, managing that is as important to your work as the work itself. 

I generally put everything on a timeline on track one and group everything by what it is. Then I quickly scrub through each group, roughly cut out the stuff that looks good, and move the good stuff to track two. Then I duplicate that timeline, ripple delete all the track one stuff, and again scrub through the selects to pull out the good clips. Once I do that I should have gone through all the footage twice, and I should have an idea of what I've shot and how it can go together. From there if I can see a clear path I'll put a very very very rough assembly together, right up until I run into an obstacle -- then I switch gears and go find music. At every turn when I hit a roadblock I change direction and do something else, because at least for me I find that if I hit too many roadblocks it completely drains my motivation and I fall into a rut. I make it a priority to manage my motivation, and in the long run it makes me more efficient.

Of course, ymmv, some might read this as silly touchy feely self help crap, but it works for me!

Procrastination is your body telling you you need a break. Seriously, take the day off, force yourself to go enjoy something else guilt free. But when you come back to it you just need to force yourself to focus on the task. But break each task down to manageable chunks and give yourself small breaks in between. Your creative energy is finite and needs to be replenished, managing that is as important to your work as the work itself. 

I generally put everything on a timeline on track one and group everything by what it is. Then I quickly scrub through each group, roughly cut out the stuff that looks good, and move the good stuff to track two. Then I duplicate that timeline, ripple delete all the track one stuff, and again scrub through the selects to pull out the good clips. Once I do that I should have gone through all the footage twice, and I should have an idea of what I've shot and how it can go together. From there if I can see a clear path I'll put a very very very rough assembly together, right up until I run into an obstacle -- then I switch gears and go find music. At every turn when I hit a roadblock I change direction and do something else, because at least for me I find that if I hit too many roadblocks it completely drains my motivation and I fall into a rut. I make it a priority to manage my motivation, and in the long run it makes me more efficient.

Of course, ymmv, some might read this as silly touchy feely self help crap, but it works for me!

Procrastination is your body telling you you need a break. Seriously, take the day off, force yourself to go enjoy something else guilt free. But when you come back to it you just need to force yourself to focus on the task. But break each task down to manageable chunks and give yourself small breaks in between. Your creative energy is finite and needs to be replenished, managing that is as important to your work as the work itself. 

I generally put everything on a timeline on track one and group everything by what it is. Then I quickly scrub through each group, roughly cut out the stuff that looks good, and move the good stuff to track two. Then I duplicate that timeline, ripple delete all the track one stuff, and again scrub through the selects to pull out the good clips. Once I do that I should have gone through all the footage twice, and I should have an idea of what I've shot and how it can go together. From there if I can see a clear path I'll put a very very very rough assembly together, right up until I run into an obstacle -- then I switch gears and go find music. At every turn when I hit a roadblock I change direction and do something else, because at least for me I find that if I hit too many roadblocks it completely drains my motivation and I fall into a rut. I make it a priority to manage my motivation, and in the long run it makes me more efficient.

Of course, ymmv, some might read this as silly touchy feely self help crap, but it works for me!

Procrastination is your body telling you you need a break. Seriously, take the day off, force yourself to go enjoy something else guilt free. But when you come back to it you just need to force yourself to focus on the task. But break each task down to manageable chunks and give yourself small breaks in between. Your creative energy is finite and needs to be replenished, managing that is as important to your work as the work itself. 

I generally put everything on a timeline on track one and group everything by what it is. Then I quickly scrub through each group, roughly cut out the stuff that looks good, and move the good stuff to track two. Then I duplicate that timeline, ripple delete all the track one stuff, and again scrub through the selects to pull out the good clips. Once I do that I should have gone through all the footage twice, and I should have an idea of what I've shot and how it can go together. From there if I can see a clear path I'll put a very very very rough assembly together, right up until I run into an obstacle -- then I switch gears and go find music. At every turn when I hit a roadblock I change direction and do something else, because at least for me I find that if I hit too many roadblocks it completely drains my motivation and I fall into a rut. I make it a priority to manage my motivation, and in the long run it makes me more efficient.

Of course, ymmv, some might read this as silly touchy feely self help crap, but it works for me!

I own both lenses, and I just shot a quick test at home. I won't post those (the wife would not be pleased) but there's not a lot in it between those lenses at the same aperture. The Sigma is sharper at 18mm 3.5 (not surprising given the Canon is wide open there) but at 5.6 there's no practical difference. My 18-135 is the Nano USM version and optically it's pretty good. A bit soulless maybe but once you accept the compromises it does a good job paired with the C100mk2. 

The way I use it from 18mm to 30-ish it's an f4 lens, and from 35-135 it's a 5.6 lens. It actually doesn't click over to 5.6 until 85mm, but it hurts my brain to keep all that in there when I'm shooting. Face tracking works great for solo interviews, though it's not as good as the C200, and the C100mk2 is so clean even up to 12800 that I'm ok cranking ISO and keeping that lens on indoors as well. I like the extra range for fast moving jobs, and I don't know if it's the lens that does it or its the DPAF that does it, when you zoom in it it automatically changes focus to keep the same plane of focus -- so it's kinda parfocal. You will see the focus change and snap back in, but it's quick and doesn't hunt so it works very well.

I find the AF on the Sigma 18-35 works pretty well, it's a little slower but accurate. I was surprised how well DPAF worked even at 1.8, I love being able to do a pan and slide shot and have the AF track focus on the subject, it's like magic. 

I have the same issue as the OP.. especially with those personal/family projects where there is no deadline, it's super easy to keep putting it off.  Here are a few things I've found have helped me.  Also, is this the most first-world problem or what?
General life / process stuff:
Find the music first and let it guide you.  Usually you have an idea of the style of the video, and the tempo or mood you shot for, so instead of grinding through 10 days worth of clips it can be more fun to go trawling through some really cool music listening for the piece that works best.  It does help to have a few clips to put up against the music candidates, but it's usually pretty quick to find a few good shots for that.  Once you have the music (or a few top candidates) it can help clarify the tempo and pacing and sometimes certain sequences will start to take shape in your mind (e.g. an cool intro or a dramatic crescendo).  The music can then act as a good motivator for starting to work through the clips because you're thinking about how the moments you're finding can fit into the different musical sections. Temporarily suspend some other personal projects/hobbies.  All the other stuff in our lives can easily get in the way of starting a big project like this.  Sometimes you need to give yourself a bit more breathing room.  For example right now I'm taking a 2-week hiatus from guitar practice so I can get enough time to work on a personal vacation video project. Reviewing clips:
Use markers in the clips to save the good moments.  You mention reviewing clips and pulling any good moments directly on the timeline.  I used to do this too but it's much faster to scrub through a clip and just mark the good in and out (with hotkeys of course) instead of trimming it on the timeline.  It also gives you a permanent record of the good moments (saved in the marker data) instead of depending on that trimmed clip remaining on the timeline as the record of that moment.  Also doesn't clutter up your timeline until you're ready to actually edit. Scrub through clips at high speed.  Probably goes without saying, but there's no need to watch every clip from start to finish at regular speed.  Most clips only have 1 or 2 good moments and you can usually spot them while scrubbing.  Scrubbing is also better than skipping ahead as you'll see quick moments go by that could work.  When you spot a good moment, scrub back a bit and then watch just that moment at full speed.  Then mark the in and out, as above. Make sure you can scrub clips smoothly.  If your camera source files don't scrub smoothly (like my Sony A9's X-AVCS h264 files, ungh) then make some proxies to be able to scrub quickly (I use 1080p Cineform).  This will also speed up the editing process as it will remove all those little micro-delays when you re-position the play head or skip back a few seconds or do some scrubbing through the timeline.  I waited way too long before doing proxies but they are totally worth it and very low-hassle nowadays (e.g. Premiere's ingest tool, only took me a few minutes to find the encoding settings and start encoding them). Remove useless or very low-value clips from the project.  Again probably goes without saying but sometimes we review a clip there's nothing good there, but we're afraid of losing anything so we leave it there cluttering up the project.  If you know there's nothing there then just remove it from the project as it will speed up the rest of the process and with over 1100 clips you'll almost certainly have more than you need.  
 

A Tascam DR10L (or even a Zoom F1) is a better set up now than an H1 with a lav. 
 
 
100% agreed. I tend to feel that f4 on APS-C/S35 (or f2.8 on MFT) is the sweet spot for general purpose / run&gun shooting. Or a bit more or less is good too, such as even f5.6 on APS-C. (same as f4 on MFT)


 

I actually liked shooting m43 because I had more DoF -- even now with my C100mk2 my go to lens for completely uncontrolled run and gun is the 18-135, I'd set that thing to 5.6 and let the AF take care of the rest. Sometimes it's more important to get the subject in focus than to worry about separation. Plus I think it's weird to blur the background so much that you completely remove the subject from its context.

Dude, if your budget is that tight then I’d suggest not buying anything, because you already have the gear you need. With the Ex Tele mode you basically have a range between 24-160, which is about all you need. Since you’re travelling I’m assuming you’re looking for work when you get to wherever you’re going right? I’m guessing from the advice you’re after you don’t have a deep portfolio behind you to be able to pre-book work before you leave. So really, the work you should be looking for is as a second shooter for someone who is already established where you’re headed to, in which case what you want is to provide a specific utility. You have a gimbal and a lightweight and versatile camera/lens combo, so be a gimbal/second shooter for event and wedding videographers. That way you leverage the gear you have, and you get a foot in the door of that market, and you start building a network of other creatives who you can lean on for work. 
If you’re really itching to buy something get a decent lav mic (I have a cheap Rode one that sounds fine) and a Zoom H1, and a Rode VideoMicro for your camera. 
Oh, background separation is a function of camera / subject / background distance, don’t buy anything until you get a handle on that. Trust me, you can spend a lot of money and still be disappointed if you don’t know how to achieve what you want. And you can achieve separation through other means, like colour/costume, and composition, and lighting. And stop worrying about bokeh — concentrate on the parts of the frame you want people to pay attention to, not how pretty the blurry background is. 

I actually liked shooting m43 because I had more DoF -- even now with my C100mk2 my go to lens for completely uncontrolled run and gun is the 18-135, I'd set that thing to 5.6 and let the AF take care of the rest. Sometimes it's more important to get the subject in focus than to worry about separation. Plus I think it's weird to blur the background so much that you completely remove the subject from its context.

I actually liked shooting m43 because I had more DoF -- even now with my C100mk2 my go to lens for completely uncontrolled run and gun is the 18-135, I'd set that thing to 5.6 and let the AF take care of the rest. Sometimes it's more important to get the subject in focus than to worry about separation. Plus I think it's weird to blur the background so much that you completely remove the subject from its context.

I suggest you change your expectations about speed, shallow dof, and m43, unless you like using manual focus.
M43 cams currently have unreliable af-c in video, so any shallow DOF shot while you are running around needs to have the subject camera distance locked in.  
M43 is also 2 stops over FF, so take your aperture and x2.  The "fast" 2.8 zooms are F5.6 equiv for DOF, which is pretty trash for shallow DOF.
I've used the GH5 since release with the 12-35 and 35-100 (and prior to that the G6 and G7). Without af-c, getting useable shallow DOF shots during run and gun is too frustrating for me, you are limited to certain types of shots where you either maintain your distance, or lock your focus and move into or away from your subject to get them in focus. I've owned many primes and hardly ever use them because zooms are so much more convenient, but to each their own.
A cheap option is the Panasonic 25mm F1.7, which is like a 50mm F3.5.  I ended up hardly using it because of no af-c, and using zooms was just way faster.
If you are a whiz at manually focusing your lenses while running around then no problem there, but it's something I found impossible to do.
That is probably an unpopular opinion around here but in my experience the tech isn't there if you need the speed.  If you have a very relaxed pace then sure you can setup your shots, but it's nowhere close to have the flexibility of F2.8 full frame.
Not saying you can't get great footage, it's just the shallow DOF takes more effort to achieve for run and gun on m43.  Best of luck and safe travels!

Dude, if your budget is that tight then I’d suggest not buying anything, because you already have the gear you need. With the Ex Tele mode you basically have a range between 24-160, which is about all you need. Since you’re travelling I’m assuming you’re looking for work when you get to wherever you’re going right? I’m guessing from the advice you’re after you don’t have a deep portfolio behind you to be able to pre-book work before you leave. So really, the work you should be looking for is as a second shooter for someone who is already established where you’re headed to, in which case what you want is to provide a specific utility. You have a gimbal and a lightweight and versatile camera/lens combo, so be a gimbal/second shooter for event and wedding videographers. That way you leverage the gear you have, and you get a foot in the door of that market, and you start building a network of other creatives who you can lean on for work. 
If you’re really itching to buy something get a decent lav mic (I have a cheap Rode one that sounds fine) and a Zoom H1, and a Rode VideoMicro for your camera. 
Oh, background separation is a function of camera / subject / background distance, don’t buy anything until you get a handle on that. Trust me, you can spend a lot of money and still be disappointed if you don’t know how to achieve what you want. And you can achieve separation through other means, like colour/costume, and composition, and lighting. And stop worrying about bokeh — concentrate on the parts of the frame you want people to pay attention to, not how pretty the blurry background is.