Ink droplets in motion snag top prize in Nikon Small World contest | Hacker News Reader

Ink droplets in motion snag top prize in Nikon Small World contest

arstechnica.com

400 points_Microft69 comments

"Neurons in an expanded mouse brain" (3rd place) is also stunning:

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!

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.

Where is the KV Cache in this pic?

that's in the mind (not pictured)

this is just brain

The real KV cache was inside of us the whole time.

Not pictured.

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.

Check out some early drawings by Santiago Ramon j Cajal; https://daily.jstor.org/cajal-imagining-the-brain/ (late 1800s)

It’s a great photo, but the second-place jumping spider is my favorite: it is just so adorable.

https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...

It is! What are the little balls, are they pollen?

Yes, the title of the photo is “Jumping spider (Salticus scenicus) with pollen”

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.

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.

Interesting, I have some here I should look at them under a microscope.

The parasitoid wasp doing its little dance move [1] gave me a chuckle.

[1] https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/2026-photomicrogra...

I'm somewhere between "awww how cute!" and "I'm gonna lose my lunch".

I'm getting, "hey man, could you help me up" vibes, to which my answer would be a resounding "NO!"

This pic reminds me of the Children of Time series of novels

Portia!

Holy moly, I love it

I will never moan again about having pollen in my eyes during hayfever season.

Yeesh that is creepy.

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.

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.

I have hard time accepting this is a real image. Do pollen really look like that?!

I'm guessing the pollen grains on it also look neat.

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.

[^1]: https://nikonsmallworld.com/people/ole-bielfeldt

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?

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?

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.

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.

There is an interesting video of his rig for this shot in this article: https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/masters-of-microscopy/ole-bi...

The video is nice but the movement is inverted from the photo.

I would like to redo the setup myself.

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.

When I first saw this photo I refused to believe it was real. This is just so otherworldly, it's fantastic.

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.

I think they had a problem with that last year, so I suspect they may be extra vigilant.

Last month https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49934521

From the article: “Bielfeldt does not use AI in his images, preferring to rely on traditional techniques.”

Yes. Macro photography always looks a little fake. Plus Nikon Small World doesn't have a good track record in 2026.

I see that it uses stacked images, so that can account for the lack of normal focus cues.

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.

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).

>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.

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.

It's not AI, but it is a stacked photo.

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.

Wait till you get the captchas that are serving what appears to be local imagery data. Spooky.

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.

I like the DMD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_micromirror_device) in DLP projectors: millions of tiny mirrors each of which is electrically controlled to move to a specific angle quickly on torsion hinges.

When you look at those globs of ink hanging from the print head, you start wondering how anything ever gets printed cleanly...

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.

There are some awesome macro videos he made during printing as well: https://x.com/macrofying/status/2112904628509528219

https://xxcancel.com/macrofying/status/2112904628509528219

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50204697

Linking to a page that links to the source is wild.

> 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

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.

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.

Pollen (second photo with the spider) looks so sinister!

I truly thought this photo was AI, wow!

This winning photo looks like a modern demoscene production!

I've been seeing this photo all over the place recently.

Next, I would like him to visualize the "macro" economy side of things too.

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.

That was a very good movie. I really liked it, even if the ending was predictable.

It would be funny if it was a Canon printer. Their quality and reliability are another league.

“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.

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