[Ram]

Great write-up and great pics (nothing less is expected from you Rudra!)
Overall sharpness of images is astounding. And composition is flawless.
The combination of a sharp eye for detail and big-ticket Canon lenses.

A few thoughts

• The 500 to my mind is more and more sitting at, "too little car for too much money".
• As one who sketches cars for love, the Linea is probably one of the best lookers in the country today. Wouldn't it now make for a boy racer with the new engines?
• Don't wide angle shots tend to have significant perspective distortion (stretching at the peripheries)?

• Like in these pics, the bonnets are stretched to almost 150% of their proportionate dimensions. With so many megapixels, maybe you could take a long shot and crop later with a photoraster editor?

Ram

[Rudra Sen]

Ram, thanks a ton. For your thoughts (point #2), Jaggu and me were having the same talk during our drive. He should be in a better position to reply to this thought.

Don't wide angle shots tend to have significant perspective distortion (stretching at the peripheries)?

Yes it does. I was using block 20 mm because I wanted to incorporate that building behind. To me, it was more to give the feeling of that place.

I rather not crop a shot just because of full frame and higher megapixels. Right use of focal length is much more advisable. For both those two examples a 50 mm would have been just right. But at the cost of eliminating that building behind.

[Jaggu]

Originally Posted by Ram

A few thoughts[list][*]The 500 to my mind is more and more sitting at, "too little car for too much money".[*]As one who sketches cars for love, the Linea is probably one of the best lookers in the country today. Wouldn't it now make for a boy racer with the new engines?

1) Yes its too less a car if you look at it for the money spent in India. See 500 is a CBU import from Italy, it is sold in India to cater to a niche crowd, who demand something different. You can call it as style statement, status symbol etc

I assume its part of a bigger marketing and brand building strategy more than anything else. My understanding is they are not looking at the sales figures for this model but it was evident that they want to grab the attention of indian customer and they are marketing it subtly but well at the showrooms.

Car has all the basic comforts in it and tons of customization options to cater to the niche crowd. It has modern day safety features also built into it (ABS, Airbags etc) which again caters to the urban crowd from a sales angle in India.

My major crib would be the plastics, though they are a notch above what we get in India. When we pay such a huge premium as duty for the car, we would naturally expect better materials.

Look at the new beetle sold by VW and 500 has the same pitch, only difference being people who wanted a beetle would have already bought em BUT 500 still has a market since it was never that famous in Indian circles

2) Yes Linea has a great potential to be a wholesome drivers car! and that too at a killer price point.

Fiat please give us the bigger engines!!!