This 50x image shows what algae look like in a water dropllet that's in the center of a 50 yen coin. It's probably not something you ever thought to wonder about, but it's visually arresting nevertheless.
Image: Benedikt Pleyer
Nikon has announced the winners of its Small World in Motion competition. The contest calls for videos shot using microscopic lenses, offering a view of the world that we rarely get to see with our bare eyes. This year's winners include footage that shows the self-pollination process of a thymeleaf speedwell flower, a baby sea urchin and what it looks like when you put algae into the hole at the center of a 50 Yen Coin.
Nikon says it puts on the contest, which also has a corresponding stills photography section, to act as a "showcase of the world's most dynamic microscopic imagery. " In a press release announcing the winners, Nikon senior communications manager Eric Flem said the winners show off "the extraordinary choreography of life unfolding at a scale beyond ordinary sight. "
First place: Jay McClellan
Subject: Self-pollination in a flower of thyme-leaved speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia) at 5x
Technique: Time-lapse, Image Stacking
According to Nikon, the flower's pollination process is fast and unpredictable, so Jay had to custom-build a motion control system to keep the action in frame. He says he made his own hardware and software to deal with the focus stacking for the time-lapse, a process that he said generated "many terabytes of raw footage for a single shot. "
Second place: Benedikt Pleyer
Subject: Volvox algae swimming in a water drop that has been pipetted into the central opening of a Japanese 50 Yen Coin at 50x
Technique: Darkfield
Third place: Dr. Eric Vitriol
Subject: Actin and mitochondria in mouse brain tumor cells at 40x
Technique: Super-Resolution
Fourth place: Penny Fenton
Subject: A tardigrade moving around a volvox algae colony at 20x
Technique: Darkfield
Fifth place: Dr. Alvaro Migotto
Subject: A newborn sea urchin walking along the seabed at 10x
Technique: Darkfield
Honorable mentions
Alongside the winners, there were several honorable mentions, including to another video created by Jay McClellan. There are plenty of interesting and visually stunning videos included in the bunch, so be sure to scroll through them as well.
2025-9-26 22:00