Provided are compositions comprising recombinant DNA polymerases that include amino acid substitutions, insertions, deletions, and/or exogenous features that confer modified properties upon the polymerase for enhanced single molecule sequencing. Such properties include increased resistance to photodamage, and can also include enhanced metal ion coordination, reduced exonuclease activity, reduced reaction rates at one or more steps of the polymerase kinetic cycle, decreased branching fraction, altered cofactor selectivity, increased yield, increased thermostability, increased accuracy, increased speed, increased readlength, and the like. Also provided are nucleic acids which encode the polymerases with the aforementioned phenotypes, as well as methods of using such polymerases to make a DNA or to sequence a DNA template.