It sounds great, but you might have forgotten that Nokia's 808 PureView smartphone, with a 41-megapixel camera, was released way, way back in 2012. That's more than the resolution of its $3,000, 42.4-megapixel A7R III mirrorless camera, which has a sensor eight times larger. It's a trinity that, on a smartphone, is incomplete as there is no aperture setting.Sony recently unveiled a smartphone camera sensor with the highest resolution yet, a jaw-dropping 48 megapixels. They physically embody precise settings such as ISO (light sensitivity), shutter speed and lens aperture, which are the holy trinity of the expert photographer. However, it is mainly their pedagogical qualities that make traditional cameras unrivaled: Their knobs and buttons act as an invitation to inspire curiosity in photographic techniques. More on this topic Article réservé à nos abonnés Arthur Edwards, the photographer who has spent his life observing the Windsors The appeal of buttons and knobs Traditional cameras are designed to work with a variety of accessories, including studio flashes that can be used to compose complex portraits or small, lightweight, wireless flashes that can be placed around the subject to recreate the desired light.

They have an extra layer of sophistication, too. And yet, it allows the user to immortalize a duck landing on a lake or a child running on a football field – all the more so because a traditional camera is so much easier to hold, a key asset when framing a moving subject. This long-range zoom is still missing from smartphones.

These include very long-range zooms, which are a feature of some compact cameras as well as interchangeable lens cameras. So what's the point in carrying around an expensive camera when it takes up so much space and has a shoulder strap that digs into your neck when you already have a smartphone in your pocket? There are still some good reasons, but they will only interest photography enthusiasts. Today, the images from the best smartphones are so convincing that often only an expert can tell them apart from shots taken with a conventional camera. The first cell phone to take photos, released in 2000, captured dreadful pictures. The quality of pictures taken by smartphones has improved enormously but, for photography enthusiasts, compacts and DSLRs still have some enviable features. Why buy a camera if you already own a smartphone?

Smartphones with best camera 2015