A contact lens is placed on a patient's eye during ophthalmic surgery, such as vitreoretinal surgery. The contact lens rests on a cornea of an eye of a patient during the surgery and is supported by a contact lens mounting speculum having multiple degrees of freedom to accommodate small movements of the eye while enabling alignment to an optical axis of the surgical microscope. The contact lens mounting speculum may be used with different patients, speculum blades, contact lenses (direct and indirect), and lens mounting positions.