Ophthalmic Photography

Welcome to the Harry and Margaret Towsley Ophthalmic Photography Department at the Kellogg Eye Center.

When your physician orders photography, a technician will walk you to our service and you will check in at our main desk. Then, you may have images taken on one of several cameras. Some cameras capture images of the external features of your eye, and some capture the inside of your eye.

External Imaging Techniques

External photos are images of your face, eyelids, and cornea. They are taken for a variety of diseases such as infections, corneal dystrophies, and Graves' eye disease.

External high resolution images are captured using one of the following:

• Standard digital camera
  A basic 35mm digital camera may be used to document patients diagnosed with an external eye condition or disorder. Among them: droopy eyelids, Graves’ eye disease, proptosis (when an eyeball protrudes) and skin cancer in or around the eye. 
• Slit lamp biomicroscope
  The same tool your ophthalmologist uses to examine your eye. It uses a narrow beam of light and magnifies the view of the front of the eye. This tool documents corneal diseases, cataracts and ocular tumors.”

Internal Imaging Techniques

For other conditions, we will need to capture images of the inside of the eye.  

• Fundus photography
  A digital camera attached to a low-powered microscope gives a close-up view of the retina, optic nerve and macula. It can also help ophthalmologists monitor changes in a patient’s retina over time — and spot warning signs such as leaky hemorrhages caused by diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.
• Optical coherence tomography (OCT)
  This technology involves a low-powered laser that goes through the pupil to measure thickness in the back of the eye — crucial for determining progression of and treatment for a variety of disorders. OCT produces images of the different layers of the retina, choroid, and optic nerve. These images will help your physician detect diseases such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and optic neuritis, and glaucoma.
• Fluorescein angiography
  Also using a fundus camera, this diagnostic test requires a patient receive an injection of fluorescein dye in his or her arm just like when blood is drawn. The dye travels through the body to the eye’s blood vessels in about 15 seconds — and the resulting contrast allows doctors to more clearly notice signs of diabetic retinopathy, vein and artery occlusion, edema and tumors.

• First is optical coherence tomography, or OCT. It produces images of the different layers of the retina, choroid, and optic nerve. These images will help your physician detect diseases such as macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and optic neuritis. In this OCT image, the different layers of the retina are represented by bands that appear in various shades of grey.
• A second way to capture the inside of the eye is through Fundus Photography, which produces detailed pictures of the retina, optic nerve, and macula. These photographs are taken to help your physician monitor your retina over time. For example, in this image, you can see retinal hemorrhages from leaky blood vessels caused by diabetic retinopathy.
• A third diagnostic test is the fluorescein angiogram. Used to evaluate the blood vessels of the retina, choroid, optic nerve, and iris. First we take Fundus photographs of the eye, and then we inject a dye called sodium fluorescein into a vein in your arm. We then take pictures of the eye as it moves through the blood vessels in the retina and choroid, the two layers in the back of the eye. Fluorescein angiography can help diagnose diabetic retinopathy, vein occlusions, artery occlusions, edema, and tumors.

Imaging Techniques Used