Olympus XA2

[JeremyLangford]

I am trying to decide on whether I like the focusing of an Olympus XA or an Olympus XA2 better. The XA has a 35mm f/2.8 lens with rangefinder focusing and the XA2 has a 35mm f/3.5 lens with a 3 setting zone focusing system.

I have found a site that says the XA2 zone focusing system is set like this.

(Portraits 1.2-1.8m; Groups 1.2-6.3m; Mountains 6.3-infinity)

I dont understand how the First and second zone settings can have the same minimum distance. Does anyone understand how that's possible without the aperture changing?

 

[manfromh]

I guess they are focused on different distances, but DOF at 3.5 will still cover enough.
Only time I had out of focus shots from my XA3 was when I forgot to set the distance. If you dont forget, then its quite hard to get out of focus shots.
The XA has aperture priority, so I would choose that though.

 

[JeremyLangford]

I am planning on getting the XA, but I am skeptic about whether I will miss the zone focusing.

I really don't understand why it would be very hard to figure out the exact distances that the Olympus XA2 focuses at when at each of the three zone settings and then make three marks under my rangefinder dial on my XA to represent the three zones. Shouldn't this enable me to precisely mimic the XA2 zone focusing feature with my XA? The only difference should be if I shoot the Olympus XA wide open at f/2.8 because the XA2 is a f/3.5 lens. Does this seem possible to anyone else?