For street/candid/walk-about GP photo making, a 35mm SLR wouldn't be my top choice. The design is inherently compromised simply to be an SLR with Through Taking Lens composition... and if you only intend ONE prime lens anyway? You are chucking away most of the advantages of it being an SLR to start with.
That is a Konica C35, range-finder model. I have the slightly less sophisticated 'view-finder' zone focus model. Mine belonged to my Grandad, when I was a child, and has all that 'classic' film camera styling of box with a lens on the front, advance lever wind-on; and aperture and focus around the lens.
It 'looks' like a propper camera.
NOW, I present it because its simply NOT an SLR. Not having a mirror box between the film and the lens, it can use a 'true' focal length lens, not a 'retro-focus' one, so the lens doesn't have to have correction elements in it or anything; plus not being interchangeable, the lens doesn't need a more intricate and convoluted interchangeable lens mount; so the lens can again, be 'better' and more rigid, and more reliable.
In 1973, these were also NOT a 'cheap' camera. There were 'budget' SLR's that were actually cheaper. & ISTR that my Grandad's cost aprox £35, which was a good weeks wages back then; equivilent to perhaps £700 in todays money.
YET, simply because they dont have an interchangeable lens, they are now dismissed in modern 'old camera' market. The view-finder models can be bought for between maybe £5 and £25, the range-finders, still for under £50, and just like in 1973, they are STILL a cracking camera.
Step away from SLR's and there are HUNDREDS of such 'bargains' to be found like this... its worth a LOT of thought, especially if you do not intend exploiting lens interchangeability.
The Konica, was one of the first affordable 'automatic' cameras, with 'coupled' exposure control to an inbuilt light meter. It was then easy to use, and didn't beg applying the f16-Sunny rule or a hand-held meter; AE system had full-auto exposure, controlling the shutter and aperture, or aperture-priority over-ride, the user selecting the aperture, down to a pretty fast f2.8 (I think) electronics balencing shutter against that. It has a conventional, I think 49mm filter thread on the lens, it I~S to all practical extents as 'versatile' as an SLR, with the advantages of cost and compact and better lens, for the sake of 'just' not having lens interchangeability.
For what you say you are looking for.. this one pretty much ticks all the boxes.... and for £25?!? You cant go wrong, really, you cant.
Has been mentioned, the imortal little Olympus XA2.
This is another Non-SLR 35mm camera, and still one of the smallest ever full frame 35mm film cameras ever made.
XA2 Number-One, is stitting on top of my record-player, next to the Daughters Cannon Digi-Compact. It's slightly disfunctional these days, and pretty much display only, having been bought when I was just 10years old in 1980, and gone around the world in my pocket a few times in my teens and 20's, and eventually been replaced with a couple of others, that are STILL my first choice carry-around camera, basically because it IS so small and pocketable.
It was in the 80's and 90's the favourite 'descreet' camera for candids and street photography, exploited by many pro's, because again, it was far from a 'cheap' consumer camera. Mine cost about £80 ISTR and was as expensive as Olympus's own entry level OM10 in the shop, that also not a budget starter camera, costing three times the price of something like a Practika SLR.
Its a lot more convenient to use than the Konika, and as said, it's enormousely pocketable and descreet. It lacks some optical excelence against the Konika due to the 'equated' 35mm lens, that is actually shorter than its own focal length to keep the camera compact, and its Automitic-Exposure only, there's no aperture-priority over-ride on this one; but exposure compensation can still be dialed in via the film-speed control.
I have literally been given two more of these things in more recent times, because of my effection for them, and the fact that as a Non-SLR, and as an at the time avante-guarde 'compact' they dont recieve the recognition as an 'enthusiast' camera or the prices.
Fantastic cameras, you can pick up litterally for next to nothing, £25 being a fair price, and even £50 for a minter, still cheaper than when new.
If you want a little more 'control' the plain Olympus XA (NOT the XA1, which is a cut-price consumer compact with selenium cell metering), offers range finder focus and some Aperture-Priority AE over ride. A LOT more expensive though, with 2nd hand prices typically around the £100 mark... and leading into other enthusiast non SLR 35mm's like the Minox 35, which is rather like the Konica, but has a pop-out true focal length 35mm lens, and again was an expensive enthusiast camera in its day.
This all leads away from 35mm SLR's..... which is my intension!
Two on the shelf above me are a Voiglander 120 roll film TLR, which I never use because of rusty rollers, and a rather wonderful Ziess Ikonta 120 6x9 'folder'..
This 'looks' like you'd expect an antique camera to, with its belows lens, which is simply wonderful, and again not compromised by mirror housing. At 105mm, for a 'standard angle' equivilent to 40mm or so on 35mm.
Its a fully-manual camera, with no integrated electronics or light-meter, so you have to use f16-sunny or a hand held meter, and set shutter and aperture on the lens, and the shear scale of that 6x9 negative!!! Image quality is fantastic, and the focus fade effects are wonderful and linear.
It's not a quick and easy camera to use, but if you are looking for that all manual fiddle-ability involvement, it offers it in full measure, and needn't be all that awkward to use.
As a carry-around camera, folded, it is actually more pocketable than any of my SLR's, I can just about slide it in its soft-case in a jacket pocket, and with a little nouse and savvy, judging settings by f16-Sunny and not making too many changes, it IS actually pretty quick and easy to use.... not very descreet though!
BUT, again NON-SLR, non interchangeable lens, not one of the renowned proffessional 'System' MF cameras, like a Rolie or Mamiya, these things are incredibly cheap on the open market, maybe £25-£50. (Mine was another bequest, like my Grandad's Konica, actually, but still).
Its a leap away from your ideas of what a 'classic' camera should look like, and only getting 6 frames a film on that one, it IS rather expensive to run... but it does make wonderful photo's and can be a joy to use. A-N-D needn't break the bank.
Which is ALL to say, think long and hard about this 35mm SLR Idea.... and how much of it is actually going to be useful to you.
Two or three more sat on the record player infront of me to consider, that are SLR's:-
First is an Olympus OM4. Top of the range SLR of the late 80's and early 90's, it was when I bought a house and had to itemise contents for insurance, a £2000 body only camera. And I REALY dont much like it any-more!
Wonderful camera, they were renowned for eating batteries. Y-e-s... mine is a US model with the OM4Ti's upgraded power saving electronics... it still eats batteries! And I stopped using it pretty much for that reason when they started taking mercury cells off the shelves cos of the envoro-mental issues! Probably valid actually... half a dozen OMK4's would probably killl all the fish in the north sea in a year! But still. Last outing on modern batteries, they didn't last a 46 frame film! That's still in it actually!
Yet, on 2nd hand market these things can command £100-200 or more price tags.
This does beg a lot of thought; and migration to widgetal has put a lot of such high end old film cameras on the 2nd hand market at what appear incredibly low prices compared to when new. But, get over that exitement, and I REALLY am sanguine whether many of them are worth anything close to the prices they command on the functional value.
So onto Second Offering, the Trusty Olympus OM10, which has also been mentioned.
YES, you do need the optional manual adapter to achieve Aperture-Priority over ride of the coupled metering system. BUT.
Rather missing the point of the camera to use it. In quarter of a century I have learned not to bother. In AE mode the camera's meter will select shutter speeds in 1/3 stop increments, and it will change the expoisure interval mid exposure if light changes. In manual, the adapter more crudely increments only in full stops, and locks exposure at those set settings. Get to know an OM10, and its AE system, you a) dont need the manual adapter, and b) can get better results without it. If you dont know the intricacies of the system, you are just making work for yourself!
It was in 1979, I think, a new bench-mark in easy to use entry-level SLR's, and still is. It's also compact, for a 35mm SLR, and there are some great lenses for it.
The 'Fast' 50 Zoilko that came as standard, though, is probably NOT its best feature. f1.8 it is fast; but the 50mm 'normal' angle of view is just 'normal'. It was expected that buyers would exploit the interchangeable lens mount, and swap it out for something more wide angle, like a 35mm or 28mm, or more telephoto, like 90 or 135mm, or even a zoom or two.
The affection for the 'fast 50' is a little perverse; they were promoted for accademic excersises, and the aperture race to make ever faster 50's was pushed a LOT by the fact that the small film format of 35mm denied the more gradual focus fade effects achieveable with longer lenses giving wider effective angle-of-view on 120 Medium format cameras; its the same vogue that suggests the fast primes for APS-C digital SLR's now, and conseqent razor thing DoF and 'Looks Photo-Shopped' back-ground perspective.... but still.
Point is is was NOT, even in the hey-day of manual focus 35mm SLR's a particularly wonderful focal length, and for street/candid, the wider angle and closer focus of a 35 or 28 would probably be better apreciated.
B-U-T is you have to have that SLR cudos, and try the fast 50 on one, then its a pretty good place to start, and OM10's have always been noteably 'cheap'.... ish.
As said, they were around £90 brand new in the late 70's early 80's, which was not so 'cheap', but far from budget. With age, and Olympus effectively abandoning the entry-level OM's as Auto-Focus hit the high street, they hit the second hand shops for stupid prices like £10, which was why, as a student, I bought them!
Now, as what so many expect a 35mm SLR to look like and do, they fetch a 'premium' on 2nd hand market, but you should still have plenty of choice for under £50, and they are a very useful camera for the money, and as they ever were a wonderful beginners 35mm SLR.
Last on the shelf, is probably my favourite camera. Its a 1973 Sigma Mk1 SLR, Richoch copy.
All screw fit M42 lenses, and in my case all primes, the actual camera fell out of an attick during a house clearance in the early 90's and given to me for the help 'cos no-one else could use it! So I built up an all priume 'period' outfit around it, pretty much for pocket money, scouring the trade-ins and bargain bins in the camera shop when I went to buy film.
All manual, with a non-coupled TTL light meter, its pretty easy and comvenient to use; the tactile 'clunk' of turning mechanical dials to set aperture and shutter speeds is very very engaging, like using an old fashioned type writer rather than a modern electronic key-board.
Lenses are good, they are retro-focus to get past that mirror box, but primes, they are other wise little compromised, held very rigidly on that screw mount, unlile rather wobly bayonet mount of my much battered OM10!
I like it because of that mechanical feel and involvement, and it has just enough versatility with the interchangeable lenses and all manual metering to be more than averagely 'useful' and versatile....
B-U-T... I so often get home to find that I have been walking around all day with the 29mm prime on the front, luggiung its mercedes like mass about, plus that of bag of alternative lenses, and would have been as well off with 'just' the XA2 or the Konica......
WHICH, hints back to top, and Do you REALLY need or want an SLR? Are the compromises for the SLR mechanism, really worth it, IF you aren't going to exploit them, not changing lenses, and only having a 50, that is probably NOT the one you would pick for very much, IF you had the choice?
SO.....
I would advocate the OM10..... pressed to make sound bite, just answer the question, dont question it, answer.
It LOOKS like a propper manual focus SLR, ticks all boxes on that front... and does it as it always has for not a lot of money, and provides a lot of scope for porogress.
As ever, advice has to be that better pjhotographers take better photo's not better cameras, A-N-D in the world of film cameras this is even more true. Its JUST a light tight box to hold the lens and film. The lens and the film will make far more difference.
So spend your money on film, go take photo's and find what works for you.
I suspect, that with a little dabbling, the merits of a non SLR will start to make a lot more sense, and something like an XA2 for 'descreet' candids and street, will become far more atractive, or something like a Lubitel TLR for the medium format quality, more atractive, and the costs of alternative non SLR's will likely be a far less significant factor in any furture decission...
BUT those I suspect are best left for later, and the here and now is JUST to fulfill imediete asprirations for a 35mm SLR...
For which the OM10, has to be a bench-mark, for cost and convenience, and with a bit of luck NOT lock you into a system to misdirect future choices, too much.
But almost ANY 35mm SLR will probably DO... just get one, get some film, and get using it.... it REALLY doesn't matter that much!