Depends on what you will shoot. If you shoot wildlife and birds I would pick the smaller sensor GF 50 which has the longer focal length (600mm vs 382mm). But if that's not a consideration I'd pick the GF 60 for the larger sensor and better quality image.

He can get a used Nikon Coolpix B700 on ebay in good condition from top rated sellers for between $300-$400. This pic of the moon was taken with it, cropped and tweaked in Photoshop. This is the best pic you can get of the moon in that price range. The camera can also be used in manual mode letting the user select the ISO, shutter speed and aperture. This was shot at full optical zoom (equivalent focal length 1400mm), f5.6, 1/500 sec., iso100. And this camera shoots 4K video as well. Click on download and the + to see fine details.

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Have you tried enhancing the camera audio with audio editing (volume, EQ, echo, etc.)? When I edit my videos I also spend some time with the audio. The problem with a camera mic or even a separate recorder like the zoom is you have to watch for extraneous noises (autofocus hunting, auto aperture changes, brushing with your sleeve, etc.). I find the zoom has good audio quality and I sync it with the camera audio in the video editor.

Spray and pray has worked for me with small birds. Sometimes I can get a decent shot out of a dozen or so. The bird may only be photogenic for a second or so. I don't have the reflexes to capture just that second. If spray and pray is available, why not use it?
Here's an example of spray and pray. This cardinal landed and stayed there for about 4 or 5 seconds before flying off. By the time I zoomed in on the lens and autofocused I had a couple of seconds at most. On the first pic the bird was partially obscured by a shadows. On the second it wasn't.
I've taken many pics of small birds. When the bird turns just so and I can get an interesting shot, I consider that a lucky shot.

Below another example of spray and pray and a lucky shot. Hand held tracking the gulls. I didn't even see the food in the white gulls mouth that the dark gull is looking at.

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... or the police may murder you. I think we already knew that.

With so many images I wonder if anything makes an impact any more. A one hour TV show on a non-premium non-commercial free channel has about 50 commercials in a one hour program. There is about 20 minutes of commercials per 40 minutes of program. Movies and videos are now made with fast cuts so that the scene changes every couple of seconds. We are bombarded with hundreds of thousands of images every year or two. There's just not enough room in our brains to retain it. I can easily remember a half dozen of my favorite movies. I can't remember any that have come out in the last 10 years, even though I am sure I enjoyed some of them. Oops, maybe it's me.

Tried a bit of creative editing on this one. Hope you like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fvNmTIT7UY

Very nicely done, Bill.

2+2=4. I have tested it out to my satisfaction. Have you tested it, or are you just repeating the most popular theories? I guess you would have believed the earth was flat six centuries ago because everyone else did.

My experience is the opposite. A smaller sensor increases the area of the object in the frame and therefore the focusing is better. I have tested the theory by photographing the same object with the same lens at the same distance on three different size sensors, FX, DX and CX (1" sensor). The smaller the sensor, the sharper the image when all three images are cropped to the same size. That's my experience. To quote Einstein, "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice they are not."

It's been many years but the view of waves hitting the rocks in Monterey, seen from the coast highway, was pretty spectacular.

I have a 10 year old 20 inch led backlit lcd Viewsonic VA2012wb monitor. It works fine for me. I'm on my third desktop with it. For me the 20 inch diagonal screen is just the right size. I'm sitting with my eyes about 2 ft. from the screen.

Yes that will work and is a better choice than the previous ones. But what about a monitor mouse and keyboard?
Can you use your existing ones? If so you are all set.

From further research it seems like the flicker may be a moving bar across the image like we used to see on old tube TV's when the vertical hold needed to be adjusted. If that is the case then a variable speed 8mm/super 8mm projector might be the only answer. Here's one on youtube that advertised flicker free film transfers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjSo892DKms
Maybe someone who has videoed projected 8mm and super 8mm might chime in here.

I have not scanned my large 8mm reel containing all my spliced reels because it and my projector were stolen years ago from the back seat of my car. However, if I were to do it I would set up a flat white piece of poster board on the wall, darken the room by covering the windows, and run the film on a projector and video it with a 4K camera on a tripod. This would allow you to scan in real time, rather than frame by frame. And you could easily improve the image and the speed in a video editor like Premiere Pro. And if there is a sound track you could tweak that as well with an audio editor like Adobe Audition which works together with Adobe Premiere Pro within the Premiere Pro timeline.

Everything I have read on film scanners has a lot of negatives, very long time to digitize a frame at a time, damaging the film, frequent stalls and need to watch the scanner during the entire process, unsatisfactory results.

I believe 16mm film runs at 24fps so there should be no frame rate mismatch there if you set the camera video to 24 fps. So I would start with the 16mm film. I would adjust the size of the projected image to get the clearest and best image with the naked eye.

This is just a guess but if you experiment with different shutter speeds and fps videoing the 8mm film you may be able to improve flicker due to mismatched frame rates. There are also youtube videos on techniques to remove light flicker in Premiere Pro that may work on frame rate mismatch flicker. But when you get the best techniques figured out, it should work for the rest of your project.

I wish I still had my 8mm reel to give this a try. Good luck.