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The Nikon Small World in Motion competition winners show a beautiful world we can’t usually see

algae suspended in the middle of a coin

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.

Our DPREVIEW Tribute:

After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview closed on 10 April 2023. This difficult decision was part of the annual operating plan review that parent company, Amazon, shared earlier this year.

Over the course of 25 years, DP Review built up a reputation as being one of the most informative places to go for information about that new camera or lens you’re after. DP Review began as an independent reviews site based in the UK in 1998, the brainchild of Philip and Joanna Askey, but it was eventually purchased by Amazon in 2007 and relocated over to Seattle in the USA in 2010.

Cheers DPReview – thanks for the great work and content that guided photographers, videographers and techno junkies the world over!

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