Microphotography allows all of us to get a glimpse into the amazing worlds of very small things that are all around us. Every year, Nikon holds the Small World competition to showcase those people who not only study things we cannot see with the naked eye, but also record images of them that are works of art. Pictured here is a water flea with balls of algae. See more of the finalists in this year’s competition in a collection of photographs called Lives Within a Drop of Water, at Neatorama’s Spotlight Blog. Link

(Image credit: Dr. Ralf Wagner/Nikon Small World)

I’m a big fan of Nikon Small World, an annual photomicrography competition (featured before on Neatorama in 2007 and 2008). The winners of the 2009 contest have just been announced.

I particularly like this one above, the Atherix ibis (watersnipe fly) aquatic larva magnified 25x by Fabrice Parais of DIREN Basse-Normandie in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, France.

Link | Check out the whole gallery here: Link

If you think the toy inside the box of Cracker Jack is cool, that’s nothing compared that what you’ll find in a box of the Japanese candy Glico caramel. Take, for instance, this fantastic Nikon F1 SLR miniature they included back in 2002.

Akiyama Michio of Red Book Nikkor has the pictures.

Link – via charlottesinterweb

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by charlieg.

I visited the Tokyo Eco Products convention the other day (2008/12/12) to be exact and naturally I headed straight for the Nikon booth where my gaze immediately fell upon this beauty: a Nikon D3 cut in half for all of our camera porn pleasures! For a technophile camera lover as myself, I was for once happy to be a foreigner in Japan: the staff politely ignored my feeble attempts to take a decent photo through the counter glass. I felt slightly incestous: a Nikon D60 photographing a crippled D3. Behold all the beauty that is Nikon technology! And pray that you never see anything like this again.

Link - via designzen

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by Fatgadget.