Low energy, ultra-short (femptosecond) pulsed laser radiation is applied to the patient's eye in one of a number of patterns such that the exposed ocular tissue is ablated or excised through the process of optical breakdown or photodisruption in a very controlled fashion. The process can be gentle enough that the invention makes possible the performance of a number of surgical procedures that in the past could not have been performed at all, such as capsulorhexis, or were performed in a fashion that provided less than an ideal result or excessive trauma to the ocular tissue. Such latter applications include the making of incisions for corneal transplantation, radial and arcuate keratotomy, and intrastromal cavitation. Using the laser inside the eye allows the surgeon to perform glaucoma operations such as trabeculoplasty and iridotomy, cataract techniques such as capsulectomy, capsulorhexis and phacoablation, and vitreoretinal surgery, such as membrane resection. The various procedures are accomplished by controlling energy flux or irradiance, geometric deposition of beam exposure and exposure time.