Hey all!

I'm a student filmmaker at Emerson College. I have currently a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k Sigma 18-35mm 1.8 Ronin S Viltrox Speedbooster M2-II

I'm writing a post here because I'm thinking of upgrading my setup. I have around 500-600$ max to improve the quality of my narrative films.

Before anything I want to give some context to a problem, I'm having with the camera first.
So a couple of months ago, the Viltrox Speedbooster stopped working properly (it works fine but the Iris, meaning F-stop, is not appearing in the camera)

This is a major problem for me, now I can buy another Viltrox but I'm scared it's gonna happen again since Viltrox Speedboosters are faulty.

I can also buy a Metabones, but it's super expensive and once I upgrade to a full-frame sensor, the Metabones will be useless.

Another option would be to buy a micro 4/3 lens, but my budget is not too high for a quality lens. And, again when I upgrade my camera and sell the bmpcc 4k, the lens will be useless.

And the last option would be to sell the 4k and buy a 6k or 6k pro. Now the disadvantage of that is that I have no idea how to sell my current camera and if I do sell it, it would have to be no more than 700$, meaning that I have to put over 1000$ to buy the 6k. I have the money but is it really worth doing that? In that case, should I save up some more and buy the Canon C-200?

Now if anyone knows how to fix the Iris on the Viltrox then that would be awesome!

Now some other questions...

I'm also thinking of buying a tripod, but I've heard that nothing below 200$ is worth buying. My college rents out Miller Air Tripods, but it's a pain in the ass to rent them out since I have to ask a week in advance and fill out some forms. Do you guys think it's worth buying a tripod in my case? If so, is there anything good that wouldn't break the bank?

Now I could also maybe invest in lighting or audio. My college also has equipment for that. In terms of audio, they have Sony PCM-D10 Audio Recorder, Lavs, and shotgun mics.

In terms of lighting they have, 2 Fiilex P360 Fixtures w/ 5" Fresnels, 1 Kinotehnik Practilite 802.

Do you guys think is worth investing in audio and lighting or should I just use what my college has, even if it's pain do the process of renting them?

Now also...

I've been thinking of upgrading my Ronin-S to an RS2. Now I'm saying this because I feel like the motors of my current gimbal are a little worn down. I've used it extensively and every time I use it now is very shaky so I'm not sure how to check whether it's fine or not.

I've been thinking of either selling it and upgrading or maybe taking it to a DJI store but I'm not sure that they can fix it. I bought it in late 2020 so I'm not sure if it's still under warranty.

Do you guys think I should upgrade?

So with all of this context, what should be my priority as to what to invest next? Is there anything else that could elevate the quality of my narrative films with the budget I have? Any extra accessories for my bmpcc4k?

Btw... I don't have a cage and what I use for batteries are a bunch of LPE6 batteries (I have 8 to be exact) and I use an extreme Sandisk 128GB for storage.

Sorry if this was too long, and if you read it all thank you so much! Any help would be extremely appreciated it.

Thanks again!