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)

Members of Japan's idol group “Virtual Currency Girls” wearing cryptocurrency-themed masks perform in their debut stage in Tokyo, Japan, January 12, 2018. Japanese female idols have teamed up to form the ‘Virtual Currency Girls’ group to promote the knowledge of cryptocurrencies through entertainment. Each of its 8 members represents a cryptocurrency: bitcoin cash, bitcoin, ether, neo, nem, ripple, mona, and cardano. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

“I was born in the United States in 1985. As early as I can remember I’ve been a “doodler”. From even the early days I’ve always loved strange, offbeat, beautiful, and slightly melancholy things. Something about the mixed grabbed me. My love for sketching carried on throughout my high school days. Which is when I took a small class on watercolor. Watercolor is what birthed my passion for mixing colors and how a color can tell a story. In year 2009 I discovered digital painting and my new found passion for the medium. It’s been the favored medium for the past years since. I’ve used online tutorials and videos to help me learn along the way and then in late 2011 I took a workshop called Becoming a Better Artist. The beginning of 2013 I won a class from The Art Department which will start this spring.”

Projectionist Antonio Feliciano, 75, checks his projector before showing a film in Monforte, Portugal May 16, 2015. Shades of Oscar-winning classic "Cinema Paradiso" run through the life of Feliciano, a sprightly 75-year-old who fears he may be the last of Portugal's travelling film projectionists.After six decades travelling four million km (2.5 million miles) to screen 4,000 films in Portugal's far-flung villages, Feliciano does not plan to retire just yet. But he is resigned to the fact that the Internet, digital TV and distribution monopolies have made his craft obsolete. (Photo by Rafael Marchante/Reuters)

(L-R) Maria Silva, Milena Cortes, Maria Arteaga, Jackeline Bastidas and Gissy Abello pose for a picture at the Famproa dogs shelter where they work, in Los Teques, Venezuela, August 25, 2016. Venezuelans struggling to feed their families let alone their pets are dumping animals on the streets, in parks and at makeshift homes overrun with scrawny animals amid an economic crisis. An hour from Caracas in Los Teques, hundreds of dogs bark and run around the streets scavenging for food outside a makeshift shelter. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

The Screamin' Sasquatch jet powered Waco Biplane sits on display during media day for the Canadian International Air Show at Billy Bishop Airport, Toronto, Ontario, September 4, 2015. (Photo by Louis Nastro/Reuters)

Military Personnel sing and dance during celebrations for Independence Day in Dakar on April 4, 2022. Senegal Celebrates its sixty second Independence Day after gaining independence from France in 1960. (Photo by John Wessels/AFP Photo)

A dragster supercharger hits cameraman Joe Rooks of Bowling Green, Ohio, in the back at the U.S. Nationals N.H.R.A. drag races in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Saturday, September 1, 1979. Rooks was knocked flat by the heavy blower from a dragster that turned over and disintegrated near Rooks. Rooks died en route to the hospital. (Photo by Chuck Robinson/AP Photo)