Evident names winners of sixth annual microscope image competition
Microscope images from cells to nanoscale materials took center stage as Evident named 17 winners in its sixth annual competition.
Evident Scientific’s latest microscope photo contest lands in the sweet spot where science starts looking like fine art. The company said 17 award-winning images captured hidden structure from biological cells to materials at the nanoscale, showing why microscope work has become one of the most visually arresting corners of photography.
The sixth annual Image of the Year competition opened for entries on October 8, 2025 and closed on January 30, 2026. Evident said winners were to be notified by March 1, 2026, with a public announcement to follow in spring 2026. Contestants could enter up to three images, each paired with a description of the equipment used, which keeps the focus on both the final frame and the technical setup behind it.
The awards were split into a global winner, three regional winners for the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific, plus a dedicated materials science and engineering category. The top global prize offered a choice between an Evident SZX7 stereo microscope with a DP23 digital camera or Evident UPLXAPO objectives. Regional winners could choose between an Evident CX23 upright microscope or an SZ61 stereo microscope, while the materials science and engineering winner received an SZ61 stereo microscope.
Judging rested on three pillars: artistic and visual quality, scientific impact and microscope proficiency. The panel brought back Geoff Williams of Brown University, Harini Sreenivasappa of Drexel University and Wen-Tai Chiu of National Cheng Kung University, and added Eliska Macickova of the University of Zurich, Ben Dubin-Thaler of BioBus, Jung Weon Lee of Seoul National University and Shengxi Wu of the Frontier Laboratory of Brain Science.
Evident has been building this competition since 2017, when it launched as the Image of the Year European Life Science Light Microscopy Award. The format has clearly outgrown its regional roots. In 2024, the contest drew entries from 29 countries and added a first-ever video category, a sign that scientific imaging is pulling in creators who think like photographers as much as researchers.
That crossover appeal is the story here. Evident frames the contest as proof that microscopy is not just a lab tool but a visual medium with real compositional muscle. The best entries do what the strongest abstract and macro photographs do: they turn texture, color and scale into something you want to stare at twice, then explain to somebody else.
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