Cinematographer Conrad L Hall, who won Oscars for his work on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and American Beauty, has died at the age of 76.

Mr Hall, regarded as one of the best cinematographers of the last 50 years who specialised in giving films distinctive lighting, suffered complications from bladder cancer.

Every film that he worked on was something beautiful to the eye Richard D Zanuck Producer

He died on Saturday at hospital in Santa Monica, California, according to his wife, Susan Hall.

He earned nine Oscar nominations in his 50-year career, winning two in 1970 and 2000.

"Every film that he worked on was something beautiful to the eye, and very imaginative," said Richard D Zanuck, who was head of production at Twentieth Century Fox when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was made.

Mr Zanuck also worked with Hall on recent thriller Road to Perdition, which could see Hall receive a posthumous 10th Oscar nomination.

'Incredible genius'

"With Road to Perdition, you could virtually take every frame of his work and blow it up and hang it over your fireplace," Mr Zanuck said.

"It was like Rembrandt at work. Connie was not known for speed, but neither was Rembrandt. He was known for incredible genius."

Other films that featured Hall's work included Cool Hand Luke, In Cold Blood, Searching for Bobby Fischer and Marathon Man.

Born in Tahiti, Hall was the son of author James Norman Hall, who co-wrote Mutiny on the Bounty.

Conrad L Hall's son, Conrad W Hall, has followed his father into film-making, credited as cinematographer on 2002's Panic Room, which starred Jodie Foster.