Perhaps my favorite category at the Oscars for as long as I've been covering them is the award for Best Cinematography.  And this year has been particularly stellar for the work of lensers behind the camera, all, perhaps, leading up to the great Roger Deakins finally taking a trophy for his work in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" after years of coming up short.

The Features department has a new issue landing to celebrate the category, fit with 14 separate profiles of lensers in play.  You can read all of them for yourself, but here are quick links to the fellas I expect to be in the final running: Roger Deakins, Robert Elswit, Eric Gautier and Janusz Kaminski (I expect Deakins to land two nods, for "Jesse James" and "No Country for Old Men").

Also, let us not forget the lede.  John Anderson looks at various revered lensers switching up their game and stretching their creative tendencies.  Philippe Rousselot, Kaminski, Harris Savides and Tom Stern are quoted.