Originally posted by Digitalis ...and look at the price of it. Leaf shutters put some hefty constraints on how fast a lens can get. Copal, who have been the most common maker of leaf shutters only allow for f/2.2 lenses at the fastest. Seiko have been getting out of the shutter business from what I have heard. Pentax would have to outsource them from someone else, which can be really expensive or make their own - which in the short term can be majorly expensive but from a practical standpoint would be perhaps the best way to go.
Copal shutters are dead, sold out, not in production anymore... That is THE medium format problem. Companies have to create new leaf shutters. Larger f-stops faster speeds have not been accomplsihed int he last 20 years. Copal quality was really low, so there is a strong need jsut to replace them.