Just take a look at [this picture](https://www.looksmartmodels.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/lamborghini-huracan-performante-spyder_03.jpg), you can tell immediately that its a model car even though there is nothing in the picture to compare its size to. My guess is that the paint isn’t authentic to our eyes, but are there other reasons as well?
In: 980
The angle of the shadow. The aperture is as big as the object, so there’s no intercepting angles to reflections and lighting. Everything just looks straight on
Well, in this particular case the background is kind of a dead giveaway. If you photoshop it into some street then it may become far less obvious.
Two possible reasons:
One is probably because it looks like the car’s door and hood aren’t really separate elements, but only modeled to appear that way. The slit between the hood/door and the car is just a small indentation in the plastic.
The other one is the depth of field. See how the back of the car is slightly out of focus? That’s what happens when you shoot something up close. This affect can actually be achieved when photographing life size subjects, by use of [tilt-shift photography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt%E2%80%93shift_photography).
There are a lot of reasons, difussion of light across a surface (how certain materials look when light hits and/or penetrates them makes you infer what the object is made out of at a glance), lack of scale detail—especially around the edges of an object where plastic and casts are less sharp and defined, reflections and shadow casting (both directional and ambient need to be complex and convincing), depth of field of the camera, and realistic and logical surrounding elements. All of these add up to making a believable object in a photo or drawing.
In this image, the all white background is probably what gets people to assume model first. We rarely see real cars in such a way, so our minds instantly jump to model in such condition.
You can make models a look lot more realistic if you place them in a realistic environment. [This imagine](https://teamspeed.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/toy-car-1-e1477875203682.jpg) shows how a model car can look pretty real. Here’s [another](https://teamspeed.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/toy-car-2.jpg) from the same photographer.
The biggest cue is depth of field. You’d need a very big aperture to get that kind of blur on a full size car, or tilt shift.
I’m don’t know anything about cameras, but this kinda looks like a tilt-shift picture, so maybe it has to do with how our eye perceive object based on distance and such?
A big one is focus and depth of field. You see how the front wheel is in focus but the spoiler isn’t? That doesn’t happen when the camera lens is much smaller than the object.
The depth of field effect is so important that by manipulating the focus you can make real scenes look like toys. This is called “tilt shift” photography.
https://www.awwwards.com/tilt-shift-photography-for-spectacular-miniature-effect.html
– the background gives it away
– the angle is uncommon for street photography
Change that and you’ll already start causing doubt. Furthermore:
– depth of field of the photograph
In this photo it’s the glossy surface it’s on. In reality surfaces that are this even and smooth don’t exist.
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