Most people know Nikon as a purveyor of pro and consumer-grade digital cameras. But the company's expertise with optics bleeds over into related markets – it's one of the science community's major suppliers of microscopes. And each year the company asks the community to send it some of their favorite images of tiny objects. A panel of scientists and journalists have chosen the best of this past year's submissions, which Nikon has placed on its Small World site.

Photo: Honorable Mention. “Snow crystal, illuminated with colored lights (5x)”. (Photo by Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Department of Physics, Pasadena, California, USA)

Third place: the rear leg, claw and respiratory trachea of a louse (Haematopinus suis). (Photo by Frank Reiser/Nassau Community College/Nikon Small World Photomicrography 2021)

Men from the Kenyan Maasai tribe perform a traditional jumping-ritual among fellow members of a common age-set as they observe a rite of passage to mark the transition of an age-set to cultural junior elder from Moran (Maasai for warrior age-set) at a manyatta or traditional homestead built specifically for the ceremony near Lemek town within the Masai-Mara National Reserve ecosystem in Narok county February 27, 2021. (Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP Photo)

A woman poses on the flooded St. Mark's square during an acqua-alta (high-water) alert in Venice, on November 19, 2013. (Photo by Andrea Pattaro/AFP Photo)

P.S. All pictures, as usual, are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture (if available; this principle works anywhere on the site AvaxNews).

Jason Derulo (C) performs “Get Ugly” at the People's Choice Awards 2016 in Los Angeles, California January 6, 2016. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

A staff member (R) looks on next to a cake, which was baked in the shape of a muscular man, for customers to try for free during a promotional event of a cake store in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, December 6, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Actor Woody Harrelson and actress Sofia Vergara onstage during the 69th annual Golden Globe Award Nominations announcements at The Beverly Hilton hotel on December 15, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)