If Sony had continued the NEX name for their APS-C camera line, the a6700 would be the NEX-14. Having joined the party with the NEX-C3 back in 2011, I’d discovered R glass by the time the NEX-7 rolled around and ended up taking around 50,000 shots with that camera paired with the 180mm APO-Elmarit and APO 2X.

So it was more with sentiment than with high hopes that I headed out with my latest copies of that combo mounted on the NEX-14 a6700 the other day. Seeing how wobbly the finder image was with IBIS switched on, I had to wonder how I’d ever managed with the NEX-7 and no IBIS back then.

A bit of double-checking revealed that the camera had not saved the focal length setting I’d entered, solved once I learned that saving it required an extra press of the menu button. Not expecting much because all the experts’ websites tell us that IBIS is of little benefit when longer lenses are used, I raised the setup to my eye.

To my surprise, I got a finder image that was even more stable than when I use the 70-350mm G, which has the benefit of both camera and lens stabilization. No, I didn’t see if I could get sharp shots a 1/13; it was enough to get a magnified image that was still enough for critically accurate manual focus.

It’s usually at about this point, a couple of weeks, into use with a new body that I start to find nitpicky things I don’t like. In this case, it was really nice to find a small detail that chalks one up on the plus side.

a6700/180mm f2.8 APO-Elmarit-R/APO-Extender-R 2X . . .