In this page there are some tests I made with the Indigo Renderer (www.indigorenderer.com)

mmm a red ball! Phong shaded. It is really simple to achieve realistic results,
but it takes also time to render (34 minutes in this case and it's the luckiest
one).

4 balls! With various materials: black and fully reflective, glass with IOR
1.5, the red ball and another glass with IOR 3. Render time: 6h30m... but the
output is nearly perfect.

Still 4 balls but with HDRI illumination. The first ball now use tungsten's real optical
properties, thanks to nk files.