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)

Natasha Hastings of U.S. on the starting block before the women's 400 metres heats during the 15th IAAF World Championships at the National Stadium in Beijing, China August 24, 2015. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Surfers surf at Surf Snowdonia in Conwy, North Wales, September 3, 2015. The surf park, which cost $22.8 million, opened on August 1 and is the world's first commercial artificial surfing lake, according to the company.The pool is 300 metres (980 ft) long and 110 metres (360 ft) wide, containing a total of six million gallons of water. A bi-directional snowplough-shaped wave-generation mechanism, towed on a cable between the two central towers, moves up and down the pool on a three-rail track, generating the waves. (Photo by Andrew Yates/Reuters)

Revellers celebrate New Year's Day in central Moscow, Russia, January 1, 2016. (Photo by Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters)

The Wadi al-Salam cemetery, Arabic for “Peace Valley”, is seen in Najaf, south of Baghdad, Iraq August 3, 2016. The world's largest cemetery, in Iraq's Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, is expanding at double its usual rate as Shi'ite militias bury their dead from the war against Islamic State. The Wadi al-Salam cemetery, Arabic for “Peace Valley” has a special place in the hearts of Shi'ite Muslims as it surrounds the Mausoleum of their first imam, Ali Bin Abi Talib, a cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad. (Photo by Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)

A woman carries her child, both wearing traditional red clothes celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year in Bangkok February 19, 2015. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Ukraine's Hanna Antonova competes during the 2015 World Pole Dance Championships held in Beijing, Sunday, April 12, 2015. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

The Y-40 Deep Joy is the worlds deepest pool. Y-40 is projected by Architect Emanuele Boaretto and supported by the “Boaretto Group Hotel and Resort”. The name Y-40 is inspired by mathematical symbols. “Y” is the ordinate axis of the Cartesian system and “–40” means the world's record depth or our pool- that is 40 meters underground. (Photo by Courtesy Y40 Deep Joy)