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)

Chinese butchers catch a pig to slaughter on January 31, 2005 in Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, China. (Photo by Cancan Chu/GettyImages)

“The Supercell”. This shortlisted image by Dennis Oswald Huge farmland of was taken in south-west Oklahoma, US. (Photo by Dennis Oswald/2019 Weather Photographer of the Year/RMetS)

Aubrey Zimmermann, 9-months-old, poses for a photo with Santa at the Willow Grove Park Mall ahead of Christmas in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, U.S. December 3, 2021. (Photo by Hannah Beier/Reuters)

Dasha performs during the CMT (Country Music Television) Music Awards in Austin, Texas, U.S., April 7, 2024. (Photo by Kevin Wurm/Reuters)

Sailors pause to take a photo with characters in Times Square during “Fleet Week 2024” in New York City on May 22, 2024. (Photo by Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

Apples are collected from an orchard in Somerset. UK for the cider company on August 20, 2025. Thatchers, marking its earliest harvest in more than 120 years thanks to a hot summer. (Photo by Brad Wakefield)

Attendees dressed as Puerto Rican-inspired Buggy the Clown, right, and Hatsune Miku pose during New York Comic Con at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Saturday, October 11, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo)