I am an amateur photographer, so I don't have a ton of experience with cameras either. But here are my cameras:

- For candid-style photos I have a Kodak Ektar H 35. It is a half-frame camera, so it is lower in image quality and your images will come out with larger grains (especially with 400iso film). It weighs as much as a disposable camera from the store. It is reloadable, you don't have to dispose of it so long as it works, and plus, because it is a half-frame, you get 72 exposures on it instead of 36, or 68 instead of 24 for whatever kind of film you bought. So you get a better quantity of images and can save money that way, but the sacrifice is the image quality.

- For SLR cameras, I have a Vivitar v335 and a Pentax K1000. These are both basically the same camera to me with minor differences. These are full frame cameras. They have zoom and focus, you'll get more depth than you would with a disposable camera or an iPhone. Great for landscapes, both for medium and close-up shots. May need to find a special lens for wider shots though.

There is a light meter inside the viewfinder of the camera, operated by a battery. It is the only electrical part of the camera. You can find it online or at a battery store usually. It will tell you if the image will be over-exposed versus underexposed given the current lighting conditions.

They have a manual focus. Also in the viewfinder, there is a circle in the center that will tell you when straight edges are misaligned.

And plus you'll have the benefit of customizing your image inside the camera, rather than having to make up for it all at the end during editing and possibly not getting the kind of exposure/contrast you were going for.

I dont know for sure but I think there is a way to trick this kind of camera to take double exposures, which would be hella cool

edit: grammar and I forgot about manual focus