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)

An Indian woman reacts while performing yoga at a railway station on International Women's Day, organised by Heal-Station in association with Western Railway, in Mumbai, India, 08 March 2023. (Photo by Divyakant Solanki/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Andrey Pavlov is a photographer and he takes photographs of ants in stunning poses along with certain props that make the images even more fantasy-like. You’ve probably never seen ant photographs like these before.

Andrey Pavlov is a photographer and he takes photographs of ants in stunning poses along with certain props that make the images even more fantasy-like. You’ve probably never seen ant photographs like these before.

At the end of a six-year relationship, photographer Laura Stevens needed to find a creative, external outlet for all the complicated feelings she was processing internally. “Another November” is the end product, a photo series that aims to mirror those agonizing emotions that Stevens felt at the time of the breakup – and the subsequent healing process. Here: “Jessica” is photographed at her Paris home in this scene staged by photographer Laura Stevens. (Photo by Laura Stevens)

A talented portrait photographer has moved on from capturing traditional human subjects – instead photographing a stunning variety of wild animals. Brad Wilson, 51, stands just feet away from the likes of tigers, rhinos, elephants and primates. Each animal is given the same respect and dignity as any human subject, with Brad setting up a full photographic studio, either at or near sanctuaries and zoos across the U.S. The works are the second part of Brad's Affinity series, which the photographer – based in Los Angeles, California, first started working on in 2010. Here: Orangutan. (Photo by Brad Wilson/Caters News)