Posted by Andrew Ure, Communications Manager, Google Australia

(Cross-posted on the Google Australia Blog.)

Collaboration lies at the heart of Google for Work. It helps people work together and achieve great things; not just for work, but also for society.

That’s why, as Australia celebrates Mardi Gras this week, we teamed up with local nonprofit Twenty10 to raise awareness of homophobia and transphobia by creating a nationwide musical collaboration.

We went to a community day, opened a blank Google Doc, and asked people to help us write a love song. More than 1,000 people added their own lyrics, as did well-known local musicians Guy Sebastian, Megan Washington and the Jezabels.

Google volunteer Tom van Gessel collects another love song lyric

As the lyrics came through on the Doc from multiple locations and devices, Toby Martin, a local singer-songwriter, chose his favorite lyrics and turned them into a beautiful song, which he performed at the end of the day.

Watch the story of the collaboration here:

You can download the song for free on Google Play. For every time it’s downloaded until Mardi Gras ends, we’ll donate $1 to Twenty10 (up to $50,000)

As Toby sings, love is for everyone.

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Well, swan song for me, anyway. Someone else will get to try it out when it goes up on eBay next week – there is a delay because the statistics say that the best auctions are Thursday to Sunday, ending at 11pm EST. And of course I missed the window by 12 hours :-)

As an update to my recent post where I am selling my compacts, I’ve decided to list them all starting at $49 (which is a steal if there is minimal interest) and set a “priced to sell” buy-it-now fee for each one. I am using the Auctiva site on a trial and am very impressed, but that is another post.

Back to the swan song … I decided to take the camera out for one last spin before I packed it for sale (after finding all the relevant cables and the manual, it is a complete package with the original box and everything.)

This is a simple back yard shoot in the mid-afternoon on a hot sunny day. Perfect for an EXR camera, but what about a second-generation SCCD?

Turns out that the F11 has no problems with contrast when shot correctly and processed in LR4. This shot was difficult because of the white slash of pool stairs and the black tree leaves. In the end, I exposed using spot meter for the white and adjusted tonality in Lightroom. Worked a charm and this shot is simply gorgeous. I wish I had shot the F550 at the same time to compare.

Fuji F11  80 ISO  f/6.4  1/800

Shooting across the pool I get about the same look. Very nice and pixel peeping is not painful at all with this camera :-)

Fuji F11  80 ISO  f/8  1/320

(Remember, the F11 was the least processed of that magical group of 6mp 1/1.7” sensors.)

I had forgotten how much I like this camera for macro mode … dang …

Fuji F11  200 ISO  f/5  1/320  full tele)

Fuji F11  200 ISO  f/4  1/250  (full wide)

fuji f11  100 iso  f/2.8  1/340

Fuji f11  200 iso  f/4  1/280

fuji f11  200 iso  f/2.8  1/450

fuji f11  80 iso  f/4.5  1/340

fuji f11  200 iso  f/2.8  1/280

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Unlike the EXR clan, this camera requires little effort to get sharp, crisp results that pixel peep rather well. But, of course, there is still the need to be very careful in contrasty conditions. Anyway, I am too used to a lot of range to go back, but I must admit that Fuji really had something going with that sensor …

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