i'm not an expert but i think the word expansion here is referring to techniques they use to spread everything out in order to make it easier to see. someone told me that they use the same material that baby diapers are made out of which expands when you soak it in water.
hobofan 16 hours ago [-]
Yes, sodium polyacrylate is used in both expansion microscopy and baby diapers.
However you also need a few other ingredients to ensure isotropic expansion, or otherwise the expanded sample isn't scaled uniformly in all axis and you get a skewed view of the sample.
small_model 19 hours ago [-]
Where is the KV Cache in this pic?
jareklupinski 16 hours ago [-]
that's in the mind (not pictured)
this is just brain
bobmcnamara 14 hours ago [-]
The real KV cache was inside of us the whole time.
DANmode 13 hours ago [-]
Not pictured.
20 hours ago [-]
doctorzook 1 days ago [-]
It’s a great photo, but the second-place jumping spider is my favorite: it is just so adorable.
I'm somewhere between "awww how cute!" and "I'm gonna lose my lunch".
stronglikedan 9 hours ago [-]
I'm getting, "hey man, could you help me up" vibes, to which my answer would be a resounding "NO!"
danw1979 20 hours ago [-]
I will never moan again about having pollen in my eyes during hayfever season.
nafey 22 hours ago [-]
This pic reminds me of the Children of Time series of novels
10u152 21 hours ago [-]
Portia!
Levitating 15 hours ago [-]
I have hard time accepting this is a real image. Do pollen really look like that?!
s0rce 12 hours ago [-]
I'm guessing the pollen grains on it also look neat.
jacquesm 1 days ago [-]
It is! What are the little balls, are they pollen?
hack1312 1 days ago [-]
Yes, the title of the photo is “Jumping spider (Salticus scenicus) with pollen”
jacquesm 1 days ago [-]
Hah, ok, totally missed that, thank you. But it seemed an obvious candidate, they reminded me of those clingy balls that come off some plants so I figured they must be something like that.
contingencies 20 hours ago [-]
Another class of biological thing that look broadly similar under magnification are fern spores. I guess moss spores too but I haven't seen those.
jacquesm 13 hours ago [-]
Interesting, I have some here I should look at them under a microscope.
1 days ago [-]
hyperbovine 19 hours ago [-]
Yeesh that is creepy.
karlfrohlich 21 hours ago [-]
Holy moly, I love it
sandworm101 18 hours ago [-]
Is it so adorable because of the eyes? I don't think spiders have pupils. That effect seems to be a reflection of the camera/lens/apparatus taking the picture, rather than the actual spider.
lossyalgo 16 hours ago [-]
For me its the seemingly cross-eyed look combined with the bits of pollen that remind me of a flower child i.e. a hippie spider.
hn-aarvin 1 days ago [-]
The same photographer has two other photographs[^1] which previously were ranked highly in the contest. All seem to focus on chemical reactions and are stunning.
Interestingly, the previous two—of a candle and match—used 2.5x magnification, where as this one required 20x magnification, which just goes to show as to how tiny the printer mechanics really are.
Interesting, the Match Strike (2nd place in 2023) seems counter intuitive to me. The flames are leading the match with the following edge clearly visible.
When I first saw his inkjet shot I refused to believe it wasn't completely CGI. So, I take it there is a degree of artistic freedom to compose a shot that may not be indicative of the actual subject? Then the line is drawn with AI enhancement?
SAI_Peregrinus 11 hours ago [-]
Flames are somewhat transparent. That's why you can see the wick of a candle through the flame that surrounds it. The same is happening here, the flame is all around the match head, not just in front.
lossyalgo 16 hours ago [-]
Regarding this image, the article states: "Bielfeldt does not use AI in his images, preferring to rely on traditional techniques."
So I would presume it also refers to his other works?
radiorental 14 hours ago [-]
Absolutely, I'm not suggesting AI was used, just curious about the level of artistic creativity allowed when composing the image.
For me, colour enhancements are expected, compositions is where we leave reality. Either way, all of these images are an amazing insight into a world too small to see with the naked eye.
basically: some aluminum extrusion for structure, some linear actuators for adjusting the position, and a nice camera with a nice objective. Plus he took apart the printer to get the sample in frame and controllable.
_ache_ 1 days ago [-]
The video is nice but the movement is inverted from the photo.
I would like to redo the setup myself.
King-Aaron 1 days ago [-]
When I first saw this photo I refused to believe it was real. This is just so otherworldly, it's fantastic.
Smoosh 1 days ago [-]
I still have misgivings that it is AI generated or modified, but assume that the judges have done their due diligence. I’m a little saddened that I now have to question things such as this.
Liuser 1 days ago [-]
From the article: “Bielfeldt does not use AI in his images, preferring to rely on traditional techniques.”
gnabgib 1 days ago [-]
Yes. Macro photography always looks a little fake. Plus Nikon Small World doesn't have a good track record in 2026.
Smoosh 1 days ago [-]
I see that it uses stacked images, so that can account for the lack of normal focus cues.
madaxe_again 22 hours ago [-]
Presumably he used software for this rather than doing it in a darkroom?
FWIW I’m an astrophotographer, and I don’t really view 30 hours of stacked exposures as “a photo I took”, rather as the outcome of a lengthy signals processing chain.
I suppose the question is where the line is drawn. Ten years ago, I doubt “I made this picture in photoshop” would have qualified as photography. Now that we have AI, the window has moved.
rcxdude 21 hours ago [-]
I think it matters to what extend the representation in the image is derived from reality (as opposed to creative decisions made while modifying the image), really. Stacked exposures and photo stacking are largely there to remove the effects of the camera on the image, and better reflect the underlying reality, so I would still call the result a photograph. (color grading and such are often far more driven by creative decisions than the underlying reality and still that doesn't usually disqualify a photograph. In-camera visual effects are also still photographs).
orbital-decay 21 hours ago [-]
>I don’t really view 30 hours of stacked exposures as “a photo I took”, rather as the outcome of a lengthy signals processing chain
Is there a difference? It's still a photometrically correct capture of the scene, unless you're using narrow-band filters or multispectral compositing you would see the same if you had huge eyes. In the same way a stacked smartphone photo is still a photo unless it's also using AI, and even then AI denoisers are pretty much accepted in photography as long as they don't meaningfully affect the subject (as well as more traditional things like CPLs or extra lighting).
Nothing in Nikon's challenge is natural, it's still a photo as long as it represents something real.
Gigachad 21 hours ago [-]
All photos are the result of processing signal over time. The only difference between a 1/1000 photo and a 30h photo is the amount of time.
MBCook 1 days ago [-]
I think they had a problem with that last year, so I suspect they may be extra vigilant.
I always try to convine my comments to the content of the article, but the captcha here has gone beyond all sense. It's presenting gen AI images of household items and asking me to identify e.g. the curtains... To prove that I'm human. It's literally a game of "guess what was in the prompt that generated this"... To prove that I'm human.
asdff 12 hours ago [-]
Wait till you get the captchas that are serving what appears to be local imagery data. Spooky.
selectodude 1 days ago [-]
Inkjet printers for their faults are some of the most insane technology that I can think of.
Yep, the entire field of MEMS is both outlandishly complex and fascinating. For those who are curious, take a quick look at https://courses.washington.edu/me557/nthu/mems.pdf, which gives a nice overview of the different mechanisms and manufacturing processes involved.
rob74 20 hours ago [-]
When you look at those globs of ink hanging from the print head, you start wondering how anything ever gets printed cleanly...
jeroenhd 13 hours ago [-]
Inkjet printers are incredible technology taken for granted by how cheap the printing hardware has become in a short period of time. Printer companies moving towards rent seeking also doesn't help appreciate how incredible it is that for 50 bucks you can have technology that launches droplets with a precision measured in micrometers.
Linking to a page that links to the source is wild.
HelloUsername 19 hours ago [-]
> Linking to a page that links to the source is wild.
Sorry, what I meant was, the source has been posted earlier on Hackernews which generated a bit of discussion
eig 11 hours ago [-]
Does anyone know if there is a wallpaper collection of the winners of this competition over the years? Would love to make a slideshow of these images as my wallpaper.
jcims 1 days ago [-]
Looks like this is the instragram page of the photographer for the inkjet photo.
It's very obviously not a standard inkjet printer setup, but if you poke around you'll see some custom rigs that make it come together.
1 days ago [-]
melq 1 days ago [-]
Pollen (second photo with the spider) looks so sinister!
karlfrohlich 21 hours ago [-]
I truly thought this photo was AI, wow!
ku1ik 15 hours ago [-]
This winning photo looks like a modern demoscene production!
erickhill 1 days ago [-]
I've been seeing this photo all over the place recently.
7kago_yomi 1 days ago [-]
Next, I would like him to visualize the "macro" economy side of things too.
20 hours ago [-]
woliveirajr 17 hours ago [-]
It would be funny if it was a Canon printer. Their quality and reliability are another league.
cellsstudio 1 days ago [-]
Thanks for sharing - what an incredible perspective on the mundane. Seriously seems like peering into an alien world and really it's just what's happen while someone sips their coffee and stares at a wall haha.
Anyone seen Thirteenth Floor that old 90s VR movie? Really reminds me of the power for that.
jacquesm 21 hours ago [-]
That was a very good movie. I really liked it, even if the ending was predictable.
ZeroDayDreamer 18 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
z3674313 20 hours ago [-]
[dead]
hyperbovine 19 hours ago [-]
“Ole Bielfeldt’s winning image embodies what makes Nikon Small World so powerful…”
PR speak is so awful. You made it a whole seven words without talking about yourself, congratulations.
Rendered at 05:25:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...
I didn't know brains actually look like this inside. Our world truly is beautiful, across all scales!
However you also need a few other ingredients to ensure isotropic expansion, or otherwise the expanded sample isn't scaled uniformly in all axis and you get a skewed view of the sample.
this is just brain
https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...
[1] https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...
Interestingly, the previous two—of a candle and match—used 2.5x magnification, where as this one required 20x magnification, which just goes to show as to how tiny the printer mechanics really are.
[^1]: https://nikonsmallworld.com/people/ole-bielfeldt
When I first saw his inkjet shot I refused to believe it wasn't completely CGI. So, I take it there is a degree of artistic freedom to compose a shot that may not be indicative of the actual subject? Then the line is drawn with AI enhancement?
So I would presume it also refers to his other works?
For me, colour enhancements are expected, compositions is where we leave reality. Either way, all of these images are an amazing insight into a world too small to see with the naked eye.
I would like to redo the setup myself.
FWIW I’m an astrophotographer, and I don’t really view 30 hours of stacked exposures as “a photo I took”, rather as the outcome of a lengthy signals processing chain.
I suppose the question is where the line is drawn. Ten years ago, I doubt “I made this picture in photoshop” would have qualified as photography. Now that we have AI, the window has moved.
Is there a difference? It's still a photometrically correct capture of the scene, unless you're using narrow-band filters or multispectral compositing you would see the same if you had huge eyes. In the same way a stacked smartphone photo is still a photo unless it's also using AI, and even then AI denoisers are pretty much accepted in photography as long as they don't meaningfully affect the subject (as well as more traditional things like CPLs or extra lighting).
Nothing in Nikon's challenge is natural, it's still a photo as long as it represents something real.
Sorry, what I meant was, the source has been posted earlier on Hackernews which generated a bit of discussion
It's very obviously not a standard inkjet printer setup, but if you poke around you'll see some custom rigs that make it come together.
Anyone seen Thirteenth Floor that old 90s VR movie? Really reminds me of the power for that.
PR speak is so awful. You made it a whole seven words without talking about yourself, congratulations.