The Slit Lamp Competition is Open. Your Practice Should Enter.

A global clinical imaging competition has been running for eight years. Hundreds of eye care professionals across 32 countries entered last year. The deadline for 2026 is 30 July. And there is a reasonable chance no one in your area is entering. That is your opportunity.

Haag-Streit has reopened its annual Slit Lamp Imaging Competition for its eighth consecutive year. Submissions opened on 30 March 2026 and close on 30 July. Winners are announced on 30 September via Haag-Streit's digital channels. It is open to eye care professionals at all experience levels — not just consultants or hospital departments—any registered practitioner with a slit lamp and a good image.

In 2025, the competition attracted 384 submissions from 32 countries. The overall winner of the imaging category was Kasi Sandhanam of Singapore National Eye Centre, whose composite image — captured on a Haag-Streit BX 900 — was recognised for its technical precision and structured presentation. The video category winner came from São Paulo, Brazil. Second and third places went to the US and Australia, respectively.

This is not a minor trade gimmick. It is a genuinely international clinical photography showcase, judged by a five-person panel that includes ophthalmologists, professional photographers, medical imaging specialists, and — joining the panel in 2026 — Marcel Meyer, a slit lamp imaging specialist with over two decades in the industry. Entries are assessed on image quality, technical execution, and pathological relevance. That last criterion matters. This is clinical photography, not aesthetic photography. The judges want to see conditions documented with precision and clarity.

Why entering is worth your time — even if you don't win

The obvious reason to enter is the competition itself. But that is not the real reason this is worth your attention.

Submitting your practice's best slit lamp images to an international clinical competition is a public statement of quality. Not to the judges — to your own team, to your patients, and to your referring clinicians. It says: " This practice takes clinical documentation seriously enough to present it to a global panel. That is a very different position from a practice that photographs when it remembers to.

Corporate optical doesn't do this. Not because the equipment isn't there — in some cases it is — but because the culture isn't. A national chain with high-volume throughput targets does not have the clinical headspace, the continuity of care, or the individual practitioner ownership to build a slit lamp photography archive worth entering. The images that win these competitions come from people who care about what they are capturing. That tends to be independent practitioners and specialist hospital departments.

There is also a regulatory dimension worth naming plainly. GOC standards require that clinical records be accurate, contemporaneous, and sufficient to support the care given. Good slit lamp imaging is not just a clinical asset — it is documentation. Practices that have invested in imaging capability and use it consistently are better placed on this front than practices that rely solely on narrative notes.

Use the competition as an equipment audit.

Before you decide whether to enter, do this: pull up your last twenty slit lamp images. Look at them honestly. Are they the kind of images you would be comfortable putting in front of an international judging panel? Are they sharp, well-illuminated, and clinically meaningful? Or are they functional but unremarkable — the kind of documentation that covers the record without actually telling the clinical story?

If the answer is the latter, the problem is rarely the practitioner. It is usually the setup. Slit lamp photography is highly sensitive to the quality of the imaging system attached to the lamp, the illumination technology, and the workflow for capture and storage. Practitioners who are producing outstanding images have typically invested in that infrastructure. Those who aren't often have capable clinical skills that their imaging setup prevents them from demonstrating.

That is the equipment conversation this competition opens. Not whether to enter — but whether your practice's slit lamp capability is doing justice to your clinical skills.

What the technology can now do

Haag-Streit launched the Elara 900 at ESCRS 2025 in Copenhagen — its first entirely new slit lamp architecture in many years, and now available in the UK. It is worth understanding what has changed, because it represents a significant shift in what is clinically possible at the lamp itself.

The Elara 900 uses a projector-based light source — Haag-Streit's P-Type illumination — that can emit across the full visible spectrum. This allows different colour temperatures to be selected for specific pathologies, giving clinicians greater diagnostic control than traditional LED or halogen sources. Infrared illumination for Meibomian gland assessment is also available on the system.

Imaging is built into the Elara 900's design rather than added via a separate module. The dual-camera setup supports 3D image and video capture in 4K — a capability that has direct value for patient education, referrals, and clinical teaching. One-touch presets allow clinicians to switch between examination scenarios without manual reconfiguration, reducing the friction that leads to skipped imaging under time pressure. Motorised height adjustment and inclined oculars address the ergonomic cost that accumulates over long clinical sessions.

Dr Sunil Mamtora at Bristol Eye Hospital has described the Elara 900's ability to capture high-resolution images and connect them directly to patient records in seconds as the feature that most meaningfully sets it apart. For independent practices building a clinical photography archive, that kind of workflow integration matters as much as the optical quality itself.

For practices not yet at that investment level, the existing BX 900 with the Imaging Module 910 3D remains the professional imaging option Haag-Streit has built the competition around — the 2025 imaging winner used it. The point is not to specify any particular model. The point is to ask whether your current setup is limiting what you can document.

What to do before 30 July

First, go to haag-streit.com and read the entry criteria for the 2026 competition. You can submit up to four images and two videos per participant. Each entry needs the device used for capture and the diagnosis or condition shown. It is a straightforward submission process.

Second, identify your best three to five slit lamp images from the past twelve months. If you cannot identify three you are proud of, that is important information. It tells you something about your current documentation culture and possibly your current imaging setup.

Third — and this is the practice development question the competition is really prompting — have a conversation with Haag-Streit UK about where your slit lamp capability currently sits and what the upgrade path looks like. They run CPD-approved slit lamp courses through the Haag-Streit Academy, available UK-wide. If your imaging is underpowered relative to your clinical ambition, that is a solvable problem. Contact Haag-Streit UK directly via uk.haag-streit.com.

The competition closes on 30 July. The equipment conversation has no deadline. But the practices that are producing outstanding clinical images — now and five years from now — are the ones having it this year.

This is exactly the kind of conversation our Grow Independent service is designed for. Book a Free 20-Minute Practice Growth Call