A photo of tiny drops of printer ink won first prize in the 2026 Nikon Small World competition. The competition announced its winners on 21 October. This was its 52nd year, and it recognised 86 pictures. The photographers use microscopes. These tools make very small things look bigger. The winner, Ole Bielfeldt, is a design student in Cologne, Germany.
Bielfeldt built a special tool to take his picture. He made the paper move and kept the parts that send out ink still. This helped him get a clear picture. He thinks the drops moved at almost 20 metres per second. His camera could not show their movement clearly, even in a slow video. So he worked in the dark and used one very short flash of light.
John-Oliver Dum won second prize with a picture of a jumping spider. It has tiny grains from flowers on its body. The picture shows its hairs and some of its eight eyes. Sinem Karaman and Satu Paavonsalo at the University of Helsinki won 19th place. Their picture shows the small tubes that carry blood inside a mouse’s eye. They study how these tubes work inside the body.
