Chris Bernard

Be sure to pick up some tolerance for a lot of inanity.  It's an election year here.  "Election" means something different to the U.S. culture and its citizens than it does to the rest of the world.  Plus, there's more than a bit of political existential hand wringing going on that we need to sort out, so expect even more navel gazing than typical. 
Going to New York City?  Maybe consider a visit to B&H.  Not only to consider a purchase, but check it out for social study.  (and you can review the EOS thread about that biz from a few month back too)
And no, US customs won't care about you carrying a camera.  Not sure where you're returning to, but I doubt it would matter there either.  I've never had issue bring gear into Europe...save for Spain, but that was decades ago before the EU and we had too much pro cases with us to be inconspicuous.

Ed, if you are in London I'd check out Shoot35. Very decent Mattebox for the money. I had their original one and a smaller one they sadly don't make any more. Bright Tangerine looks like the one to beat today. If I could do it over I'd get a box that supports 4 x 5.65. I've found it really hard to find the 4 x 4 filters I'd like to use in the used market. Some filters like the Tiffen Indie IR ND line only seem to be available in the 4 x 5.65 range.
https://www.shoot35.com/

It's early days but I do think narrative VR will emerge as a new genre that someday may even become the dominant one. We're still in the early stages. Sort of like when radio shows were first adapted for television and you just had folks reading in front of microphones. The design language that needs to be developed is how do you direct attention in the narrative and how do you help people have the experience when they are in an environment where they perhaps can't move around that much. I think there are ways around some of the production limitations, at least for mid-size and big productions with virtual sets, 3D environments or even the stitching together of environments that are shot conventionally, based shooting and relighting an entire room while only capturing 120 degrees at a time for example. I think the next big breakthroughs in this space will be VR narratives that supplement traditional storytelling. Imagine a bonus section of House of Cards where you could explore the White House for example or imagine a move like Inside Out where you could sort of go on the journey yourself.
If you really want to bend your head imagine what it would be like to attempt to tell narrative stories with augmented reality. Or leveraging the potential social aspects of this technology to create shared narrative experiences. Think a virtual version of Sleep No More, an interactive theatre experience. http://www.sleepnomore.com/
I'll be paying a lot of attention to both of these realms, I think they will be huge and I highly recommend that if you ever get a chance to try these experiences that you should. Even Google Cardboard is fantastically cool.

I've spent the last few months now really getting involved in VR... Learning everything I can and testing all the top (and low end) gear. My end goal is in the app side of things... But I wanted to make a post about 360 video and where I see VR filmmaking going.
VR is still very much in it's infancy and the tech is nowhere close to perfect, pixels are easy to make out and the heavy headset, tethered to a large computer*, is not the most comfortable way to be entertained (*Vive and Oculus)... But the magic of VR is clear the minute you put a headset on. It is a stunning experience and really does go some way to tricking your brain into feeling like you are in another world... Even senses like movement and touch can be tricked.
The first experience I had was in Oculus, with a game of sorts called "Life of Lon".... After floating around in the sky for a while, the spaceship I was in suddenly nose dived towards the ocean... I literally clung onto the desk in front of me (in the real world) as the sense of speed and dropping from the sky was incredibly real. This was when it struck me that VR as a narrative means will be huge. That sense of immersion is so well suited to certain genres.
My first experience of narrative VR was a trailer for Insidious 3... It is creepy as hell and the PERFECT use of the format... The feeling of something behind you or in your peripheral vision is palpable. They are also clever in their visual and audio cues to guide you to look in the right places... Essential for a 360 experience.
This brings me onto 360 video as a narrative tool.... For almost everything other than the first person view done so well with insidious... It is just a massive gimmick. It is nauseating, unnatural and, worst of all, boring. Most of the films on the Oculus video app are misusing the tech badly, making you swing wildly around, looking for the action. Narrative needs direction, 360 video takes that out of the equation, unless in very clever hands. The other downside is that production suffers, you can no long have lights, boom mics, dollies, cranes etc.
My view for the future of this tech is a 270 degree, ultra wide format that allows you to sit in a normal chair... look all the way left, right, up and down... This would still provide complete immersion, but allow for the so called "4th wall" to remain in place, so lighting, directing, sound etc become a little less stressful, allowing for far better production values.
Anyway, just some thoughts on what I think to be an amazing tech... I urge all of you who have yet to experience it to try and find a way. It is only going to get better and better.
 

I went through the same exercise in 2015. I wound up investing in the following and I've been happy. 
Tascam 701D
2 Tascam DR-10C, only available outside the US for now. I leverage my Sennheiser G3 system and mics with this setup but Aspen or OST mics would work great too. Pairing two of these with a G3 system can create a super compact audio system with massive recording redundancy that you can monitor and even feed into a camera.
Used AT4053b and AT4073a mics. You have to be patient to find these used. Took me 6 months.
For the amateur stuff I do I've been pleased with this gear. For pure quality I'd look at a used MixPre, I had one of these and sold it, I regret that. But I find the Tascam 701D super easy to use once you get it set up right and it's super bag friendly and camera friendly.

Manfrotto 535 or 536 in carbon. Complete work horses and super sturdy. Both would fit in your budget. I used to put a Kessler Travel Slider on my 536 and it's rock solid. You could probably get away with a 30 to 36 inch slider on one of those and be okay.

I archive to cineform (10 bit YUV) or DNxHD. Don't archive in H264 if you want to use it in the future! 

I would say it's not just bitrate but how long you want the archive to be useable in the future. As Geoff CB mentions, Cineform, DNxHD or even ProRes are probably the safest bets in terms of being able to open a file and get it into an editor 5 to 10 years down the road. These require a great deal more storage but an optimized file you can't open is pretty useless. This is a very real issue. I have video files from the early nineties I archived (Think Radius video boards if I'm going to date myself), that I wisely converted to Cineform years ago that are still usable). Although all that 3D 480P demo reel content probably isn't really needed by anyone today.  

If you look at upcoming cameras like the L16 I think you are going see the a majority of cameras in phones and consumer and prosumer cameras are going to look very different than they do today. Will it technically be the same? No, but as JCS states computational photography is going to be wildly disruptive to the industry. It's like comparing bows and arrows to guns and bullets.

Or save a ton of money and get a Beholder DS1.
I did.
Love it.
Tool less. 1.6KG max payload. $699 from the main importer Owl Dolly.
The dual-weight programability is lovely. So I can go from a really light Pocket with a Voightlander 20mm pancake to a 5D or NX1 with something like the Samyang 16mm or 24mm on it.
Essentially it duplicates the 3 basic modes but comes with, and allows changing of, the motor strengths for the two groups. This is critical if you're going to attempt to use more than one camera on it...ever.

I owned the Nebula 4000. A total bitch to calibrate but it was super small and I've seen a number of people that can make it sing, but I never really could. I now have a Came TV Single, the fact that you can't tune it without violating the warranty is a serious bummer and its pretty big. I suspect with a lot of careful practice and tuning you could get good results with if you dare messing with PID on it but I find out of box that it's mediocre. If was doing it today I would look at the Beholder, which is tool less or the new PilotFly--presuming you can tune it with its new encoders. It's got a rich (for gimbal guys) ecosystem of settings that people share making it easy to configure. I would also never buy a gimbal that is not tool less at this point. With NAB around the corner it's probably better to wait but if you can't I would say in this segment that the PilotFly H2 is ticking all the boxes at this point.

I am not an audio professional but most audio professionals I've encountered will tell that they prefer a wired mic over a wireless all the time and in general a boomed mic over a lav mic as well (Either shotgun or hypercardioid depending on surroundings). But sometimes you simply need wireless to get the job done. I have a G3 system and it gets the job done (Actually I've never, ever, had a problem with it) but cost me quite a bit but and if I was on a budget I'd look at Rode's wireless offerings, they are bulkier but they are easier to set up and use and priced really reasonably in my opinion. Sennheiser also has new equipment that is far easier to use but it is not cheap but will probably last forever.
One investment I made is buying a set of adaptors for my wireless lavs that will let me feed them phantom power from a wire. This way if I'm on a shoot and I'm having problems with wireless I can still feed them into a mixer, or in my case a simple Juiced Link box. Sennheiser makes these adaptors for about $130 US each but there is a nice company in the UK that makes them for half the price as well. http://www.canford.co.uk/ 
The product I bought for my G3 kit is:
http://www.canford.co.uk/Products/20-769_CANFORD-ELECTRET-MICROPHONE-ADAPTER-3.5mm-jack 
Also the stock lavs that come with wireless kits are nothing special, many folks update these.

I am not an audio professional but most audio professionals I've encountered will tell that they prefer a wired mic over a wireless all the time and in general a boomed mic over a lav mic as well (Either shotgun or hypercardioid depending on surroundings). But sometimes you simply need wireless to get the job done. I have a G3 system and it gets the job done (Actually I've never, ever, had a problem with it) but cost me quite a bit but and if I was on a budget I'd look at Rode's wireless offerings, they are bulkier but they are easier to set up and use and priced really reasonably in my opinion. Sennheiser also has new equipment that is far easier to use but it is not cheap but will probably last forever.
One investment I made is buying a set of adaptors for my wireless lavs that will let me feed them phantom power from a wire. This way if I'm on a shoot and I'm having problems with wireless I can still feed them into a mixer, or in my case a simple Juiced Link box. Sennheiser makes these adaptors for about $130 US each but there is a nice company in the UK that makes them for half the price as well. http://www.canford.co.uk/ 
The product I bought for my G3 kit is:
http://www.canford.co.uk/Products/20-769_CANFORD-ELECTRET-MICROPHONE-ADAPTER-3.5mm-jack 
Also the stock lavs that come with wireless kits are nothing special, many folks update these.