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)

These greenfinches go head to head in what appears to be a heroic fight or a playfull moment together, inspiration for a new version of “Angry Birds”, in Trezzo Sull'Adda, Italy in March 2013. (Photo by Marco Redaelli/IMP/AbacaPress.com)

“Catch of the Decade”. Can you guess what happened next? Photo location: Katmai National Park, Alaska, USA. (Photo and caption by Aaron Baggenstos/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A woman takes a picture of a statue of a child wearing what appears to be a hazardous material suit in Fukushima, Japan on August 14, 2018. (Photo by Kwiyeon Ha/Reuters)

A worker puts up an advertising billboard for a recruiting company, featuring what resembles US President Donald Trump, in Zagreb, Croatia, Saturday, November 7, 2020. (Photo by Darko Bandic/AP Photo)

Naked footballers participate in a Germany v Netherlands soccer match in protest against what they say is increasing commercialization of professional football, in Wuppertal, Germany on September 6, 2020. (Photo by Leon Kuegeler/Reuters)

Ahead of Valentine's Day, American singer Jennifer Lopez in the last decade of January 2024 drops not-so-subtle hints as to what's on her wish list. (Photo by JLo /Instagram)