Well 1/2000s speed is a feature I would love to have. In bright daylight when using flash high speed sync, the flash drains so much battery power and needs time to recycle between shots, extremely annoying.
A common case: You are outdoors shooting portraits you are using wide aperture on a 200mm lens. You do need high shutter speed, even with ND filters with high speed sync flash reach is limited, with 1/2000 Xsync you can use wide aperture without ND and the flash reach is much increased your model will feel much more comfortable when you have some distance.
I am sure for fashion photography this option is more than welcome.
Not sure what I should make from this. Leaf shutter is a neat feature, I agree, I quite like them. But the lenses are not terribly fast actually and, as was pointed out already, the diagonal of the sensor is not that much bigger than a so-called full frame.
While I can see a point in the 45/3.5 (36/2.8 equivalent) lens, I struggle a bit with the 90/4.5 (72/3.6 equivalent). The focal length of this is a bit in no-mans-land. It's to narrow for a standard and to wide for a portrait lens. A f/3.6 equivalent aperture doesn't give you as much separation as I would hope for in a "medium format". Regarding separation this gets you into the territory of an µFT with a 1.4 or 1.8 lens. Not bad but not spectacular either.
Folding in the costs, I do not really see that flying very well. E.g. Nikon 85/1.4 (B&H) goes for about half the price announced for the 90/4.5.
enjoy
I'm no fashion photographer, but isn't a lot of this sort of thing shot at f8 anyway to get lots of DOF? You have control over lighting and background so the need to separate the subject from the background is not important.
regarding the focal length, I agree - seems a strange choice.
Ouch, $2295 for a 35mm f2.8 135 format equivalent lens is quite steep a price still. That is a lot to pay for a leaf shutter which enables 1/2000th sec x-sych speed.
All of a sudden the Sony CyberShot RX1R II seems to be a pretty good deal, with 35mm f2 lens and 42mp sensor. Does Sony offer un-butchered RAW for these cameras now, btw?
This has no internal shutter so adapting existing lenses will not work. I think an A7r2 is the better deal when factoring lens selection, speed and versatility. Not to mention body price
I think the adapter is for existing leaf shutter hasselblad lenses. Presumably off brand LS lenses could be made to work too.
Obviously adapted SLR lenses won't work for both the lack of shutter and also not projecting over the entire sensor area.
The A7rii really is an interesting competitor, we wait for comparisons between the two (by people with deep pockets!).