While developing the attached images I was manipulating different 
lighting and finish effects to get a certain design result rather than 
absolute photo realism.

Working with shadowless objects I was balancing the diffuse with the 
reflection values in the finish of the reflecting plane.  When I turned 
fresnel "on" I got a result that both surprised and pleased me. It is 
demonstrated in the second inmage. It surprised me because I thought the 
fresnel function required variable reflection to be specified with a max 
*and* a min value, but I was using just one value. Turns out the inverse 
seems to be true, you can turn off all variable reflection by specifying 
both  max and min values with max = min.

This lead to running a few more tests which can be seen here:

http://www21.brinkster.com/jrcsurvey/fresnel/

Surprising to me also is the effect of ior = 1, now reflection seems to 
be cancelled unless different mas and min values are put in explicitely.

Anyway, any preferences when comparing the attached images?
Can anyone help explain some of the effects I am seeing?

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Attachments:
Download 'fresnel.00001.jpg' (48 KB) Download 'fresnel.00002.jpg' (57 KB)

Preview of image 'fresnel.00001.jpg'

Preview of image 'fresnel.00002.jpg'