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)

Ethnic Uyghur tourists guides wait to perform in a show for Chinese tourists on June 29, 2017 in the old town of Kashgar, in the far western Xinjiang province, China. Kashgar has long been considered the cultural heart of Xinjiang for the province's nearly 10 million Muslim Uyghurs. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Dressed for the traditional New Year's festival known as “La Diablada”, in Pillaro, Ecuador, Friday, January 5, 2018. Thousands of singing and dancing devils take over the mountain town for six days of revelry in the streets. Local legend holds that anyone who adopts a costume for the celebration and wears it at the event six years in a row will have good luck. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

Kosovar Bosnian women help the bride Sellma Demirovic (C) to be dressed with traditional clothes on her wedding day for a traditional ceremony in the village of Donje Ljubinje, Kosovo, 14 August 2021. (Photo by Valdrin Xhemaj/EPA/EFE)

A child reacts as people attend a protest organized to celebrate the announcement of the ceasefire in Gaza,at Yarmouk camp in Damascus, Syria on January 17, 2025. (Photo by Yamam Al Shaar/Reuters)

Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo falls as he plays against Germany's Alexander Zverev during a Davis Cup quarterfinal singles tennis match between Germany and Argentina, in Bologna, Italy, Thursday, November 20, 2025. (Photo by Luca Bruno/AP Photo)

A couple passes the sculpture “Transformer” by Chinese artist Bi Heng during snowfall in Kassel, central Germany, Tuesday March 12, 2013. Frankfurt airport closed, a quarter of flights out of Paris were canceled, Belgium suffered record traffic jams and high-speed trains were stuck in stations – all because of a sudden dump of oddly late snowfall on Western Europe. Less prepared for the kind of heavy snow that regularly hits northern and eastern neighbors, France, Britain and Belgium struggled Tuesday to keep moving amid the frosty, blustery conditions. (Photo by Uwe Zucchi/AP Photo/Dpa)

Local residents participate in the annual carbide shooting on New Year's Eve in Zwolle, the Netherlands on December 31, 2023. (Photo by Vincent Jannink/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)