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)

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965), British Statesman and Prime Minister inspecting the boys from a training ship. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1912

A girl walks in front of a graffiti painted on the wall of a house located inside the 15th-century complex built by Mameluk Sultan al-Ashraf Qaitbey, in Cairo's City of the Dead, Egypt February 13, 2017. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Participants jump into the water during the 114th edition of the Copa Nadal (Christmas Cup) swimming race in Barcelona's Port Vell on December 25, 2023. The traditional 200-meter Christmas swimming race gathered around 300 participants on Barcelona's Port Vell (old harbour). (Photo by Josep Lago/AFP Photo)

Patience paid off for the photographer who waited for hours to catch a crocodile on Java, the largest Indonesian island in March 2023. (Photo by Tanto Yensen/Solent News)

Participants take part in the annual New Year' s Day Parade in central London, United Kingdom on January 1, 2018. Reports state that 8,000 performers representing the London boroughs and countries from across the globe are parading along the streets of London's West End on New Year’s Day. (Photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP Photo)

A streaker races across the field and is caught by security during the Super Rugby match between New Zealand's Highlanders and South Africa's Sharks at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin on February 7, 2020. (Photo by Marty Melville/AFP Photo)

Journalists practice social distancing outside a meeting to wrap up work on coronavirus economic aid legislation to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Washington, U.S., March 21, 2020. (Photo by Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)