Nikon has announced the winners of its Small World in Motion competition, which celebrates the fascinating subgenre of video microscopy. Just as deep-space content creators attach cameras to the best telescopes for astrophotography to capture faraway celestial objects, photomicrographer and videographers utilize the best microscopes to capture otherworldly images and footage of subjects that are otherwise invisible to the human eye.
Nikon has a rich heritage of making optics for microscopes, so it's hardly surprising that it's been championing this niche area of image making via its Small World competition since 1975. The Nikon Small World in Motion competition launched in 2011 exclusively for microscopy videographers to complement the existing Nikon Small World competition, reserved for photomicrography submissions.
The formidable prize fund is anything but microscopic, with the top five winners and those awarded with honorable mentions taking home a variety of cash prizes from $100 to $5,000.
Nikon Small World in Motion – first place
Dr. Bruno Vellutini was awarded first prize and $5,000 for his incredible video depicting "mitotic waves in the embryo of a fruit fly". He used light sheet microscopy to capture the "rhythmic waves of division and tissue movements critical to proper embryonic formation in fruit flies".
He told Nikon: "The biggest challenges I encountered were in mounting the embryos correctly and optimizing imaging conditions to capture clear, high-quality footage over an extended period. Balancing light exposure to avoid harming the samples was crucial".
As for the video's significance, he said: "Fruit fly embryos are in our homes, developing in our kitchens and our trash bins (...) I believe the video is particularly impactful because it shows us how these fascinating cellular and tissue dynamics are happening every day, all around us—even in the most mundane living beings."
Nikon Small World in Motion – second place
Jay McClellan mopped up a well-deserved second place and $3,000 with a truly mesmerizing timelapse video of water droplets evaporating from the wing of a peacock butterfly. The smooth camera movement and pin-sharp focus is particularly impressive, given the precision needed to capture such close-up footage.
Nikon Small World in Motion – third place
Third place and $1,500 went to Dr. Jiaxing Li, who captured an "oligodendrocyte precursor cell in the spinal cord of a zebrafish".
Nikon Small World in Motion – fourth place
While the combined efforts of Dr. Ignasi Vélez-Ceron, Dr. Francesc Sagués and Dr. Jordi Ignés-Mullol earned fourth place and $800 for their footage depicting "friction transition in a microtubule-based active liquid crystal".
Nikon Small World in Motion – fifth place
The final placing, and $600, went to Quinten Geldhof, whose video captures "a baby tardigrade riding a nematode".
The Nikon Small World stills photography winners will be announced next month.
You may also be interested in our guides to the best Nikon cameras and the best Nikon lenses.
