My advice is set a clear budget and try the cameras in your hand.

Additionally, keep in mind that lenses are for the most part more important than the camera body and almost all manufacturers have you locked in with their proprietary mount (Canon and Nikon mainly). Others don’t have cheap bodies to begin with, so it’s good to know the whole lineups early on as switching systems takes money and work.

If you buy used, get gear from reliable sources.

From your goals, Fujifilm could fit the bill well, although I have no experience with their products: no sell up to full frame gear, sufficient manual controls and a very wide product palette (they have some gimmicky film simulation modes but you can just ignore them). They make mirrorless since a long time, so you should find used cameras.

Canon has really nice low end cameras and lenses, but if you think you are going to upgrade some starting gear, the jump to high end lenses is crazy.

Sony has expensive bodies but cheaper older ones can get you in the ecosystem: huge amount of third party offerings (mainly Chinese cheap lenses, which are getting better and better). Not so beginner friendly but anyone can learn.

Nikon is solid and priced competitively, not much to say.

Panasonic is interesting, but still focus more on video than stills.

Micro-Four-Thirds is struggling of late, I wouldn’t recommend buying new gear for this system. Used Olympus cameras can be awesome though, very small (the sensor too…)

What Nikon model have you borrowed from your dad? If it uses interchangeable lenses, which lenses have you used? Are there things you like and dislike about using it?

It’s usually advisable to buy used, and your local used market could have a big influence on what’s a good value for you. All modern cameras from major brands are capable of capturing quality images, but some have features like weather sealing or bird-detect autofocus that are valuable in certain situations. The lens usually has a bigger impact on the look of the image than the body, so lens selection may be a major factor in your choice.

What do you want to photograph? What part of the world do you live in (a country or region will let people know where you can buy)? About how much money do you want to spend? If you’re not sure, give a preferred amount and a hard limit.

A used DSLR will get you a better sensor for your money than mirrorless, and because the mounts are mostly out of fashion the used lenses will be cheaper. However, you can also get old fixed lens premium cameras for cheap these days. A first gen Sony RX100 gives you a fair bit of flexibility in optical zoom, as well as a decent enough sensor.

Depends what you want and where you see your photography going. Then budget…

If I were you, I’d get an compact digital camera like an olympus xz-1. its a little 10mp camera with manual control options. the lens is a built in zoom lens, but it is a wide f1.8 which will allow you to experiment with lower light scenarios and thin depth of field for portraits. It wont get you insane sharpness or croppability (so, get your composition right when you take the shot) but it has nice out-of-camera colors, so you won’t have to delve into the editing world. I shoot film and I got one for my partner so she could have a camera to walk around with with me that looks comparable to film due to its softness.

it wont be as satisfyingly tactile to learn about the exposure triangle (ie, as you change the values of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO in order to capture the right amount of light) as a manual film camera or a digital mirrorless body with interchangeable lenses, but itll definitely be fun to walk around with.

it shouldnt be as overwhelming re: features as modern day mirrorless cameras, which can get confusing with the amount of systems that are within them (like pixel shift, bracketing, internal image stabilization systems, etc. – you don’t need these to learn the basics of photography, and they can be a barrier if you get too caught up with them or finding theyre introducing another variable thats screwing with your shots).

And, if you want to be lazy, put it in auto mode and its a decent little point n shoot. it wont get you near wildlife photography, though, if thats something you’d want to dabble in (that gets expensive). it also wont be great if you want to try manual focusing.

I’d say if you just want a camera for a nice walkaround hobby, a mirrorless or dslr camera is a little bit overkill and the xz-1 is a good inexpensive buy if you can get one for like $300. a good modern starting camera with a lens is probably going to put you around $1k, and thats quite a bit of an investment.

If you want a real satisfying way to learn the utter basics of how a camera works, dont mind some unpredictability, have a camera lab near you, and have a couple hundred to spend, you could pick up a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f2 lens for like $150 and shoot a few rolls of Kodak Gold 200 and send em off to a lab. But that will be a longer learning process (how to load film, advance it, what shutter speeds to remain under in order to compensate for your body’s movement, how to focus, how to respool the film into the canister once youve taken all your shots, etc). There’s nothing really more satisfying than a no-batteries, all mechanical experience, IMO. but its a lot of learning and can get expensive.

Edit: though, maybe since you’ve already got experience with your Dad’s Nikon, you’d rather something of your own more akin to that…in that case …hmmm well I’m running an Olympus OM-1 mkii as my mirrorless … you could get the mark 1 (essentially the same except for a couple niche features for wildlife) and the 12-40 f2.8 lens for ~1000 and that’d be pretty baller starting kit, imo. the 12-40 is a really really good lens, esp for ~$500. The nice thing about that is it’d be totally weather sealed (like, just let the rain hit it directly and dont even worry) and you have access to try out more modern computational photo tech. It would also allow you to expand into other areas like nature for a bit cheaper than if you went for a Full frame alternative like canon or sony or nikon. You could get a decent birding setup with a Om-1 and a 300mm f/4 pro for ~$5000, where something akin in full-frame land would be more like 7k-10k. Though, there are still tradeoffs going with a smaller micro-four-thirds sensor of the OM-1 – but honestly I don’t think you super need to worry about them.

Any camera that exists is a good starting camera, so the question is somewhat vague…

First, you should think about your budget. Then, maybe think about what you want to take photos of, then choose lenses based on that, then a camera body that is compatible with those lenses.