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)

Inês Carvalho (C), accompanied by her sister and cousin, is helped by her aunt to dress up at Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon on June 12, 2014. Carvalho, 18, is one of the revelers from the Alfama march and every Saint Anthony's day, Lisbon's protector, she parades with several other typical neighborhoods of the city. (Photo by Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP Photo)

Charlotte fights a monster with a “wand” in her bedroom in Laure Fauvel's “Terreurs”, 2014, in Paris, France. An imaginative photographer has brought to life monsters that haunt children's nightmares. Armed with sticks, wands and swords the eight and nine year-olds appear to be getting the upper-hand against the villains. Parisian photographer Laure Fauvel, 22, said: I wanted the children not be victims and to fight the monsters. (Photo by Laure Fauvel/Barcroft Media)

Soldiers use electronic sensors to search for missing firefighters under a line of fire trucks caught in massive gas explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Friday, August 1, 2014. A series of underground explosions about midnight Thursday and early Friday ripped through Taiwan's second-largest city, killing scores of people, Taiwan's National Fire Agency said Friday. (Photo by Wally Santana/AP Photo)

Dancers prepare before a performance in the backstage area of the Buick exhibition during the “Auto China 2014” Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in Beijing on April 21, 2014. Leading automakers have gathered in Beijing for the kickoff of China's biggest car show, but lackluster growth and environmental restrictions in the world's largest car market have thrown uncertainty into the mix. (Photo by AFP Photo)

Nepal's Kumari, or living goddess, adjusts her ornament as she watches the Rato Machindranath chariot Festival in Lalitpur, Nepal, Friday, April 24, 2015. Nepal's living goddesses are young pre-pubescent girls considered by devotees to be incarnations of a Hindu goddess. Selected as toddlers, living goddesses usually keep their positions until they reach puberty. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

A Buddhist monk salvages a statue of a Buddhist deity from a monastery around the famous Swayambhunath stupa after it was damaged by Saturday's earthquake in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, April 30, 2015. In mere seconds, Saturday's earthquake devastated a swathe of Nepal. Three of the seven World Heritage sites in the Kathmandu Valley have been severely damaged, including Durbar Square with pagodas and temples dating from the 15th to 18th centuries, according to UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

A woman takes cover as shots are fired by police officers as they face off with stone-throwing protesters, during an anti-government demonstration in Bujumbura, Burundi, 20 May 2015. Police officers fired shots and teargas canisters in running battles with protesters who demonstrated against Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term. Presidential spokesman man said on 20 May that the country will postpone its parliamentary and local council elections, previously scheduled for 26 May, to 05 June 2015. According to the United Nations' refugee agency, more than 105,000 Burndians have fled the country to seek refuge in neighbouring countries such as Rwanda, DR Congo, and Tanzania. (Photo by Dai Kurokawa/EPA)