Jost Vacano was born in Osnabrück on March 15th, 1934. He studied electronic engineering at Munich University and after receiving his degree, he enrolled at the Deutsche Institut für Film und Fernsehen, a film and television school. In the mid-1950s, Vacano started to work in the production of ads and non-fiction films, for instance he assisted Peter Schamoni on a short documentary about the 1957 World Youth Games in Moscow. He also collaborated with Schamoni on six more short films and on the feature film "Schonzeit für Füchse" (1966).

In the 1960s and 1970s, Vacano worked as DoP in television and New German Cinema alike, including Rolf Hädrich's "Mord in Frankfurt" (1968), Peter Beauvais' adaptation of the Siegfried Lenz novel "Die Deutschstunde" (1971), the TV thriller "Kressin und der tote Mann im Fleet" (1971) – also directed by Beauvais –, Roland Klick's "Supermarkt" (1974) and " Lieb’ Vaterland, magst ruhig sein" (1976). He joined the upper echelon of Germany's cinematographers with Volker Schlöndorff's "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum", for which he was awarded the German Film Prize. This was followed by Wolf Gremm's " Die Brüder" (1976) and "Tod oder Freiheit" (1977).

His creative partnership with director Wolfgang Petersen began with the highly successful submarine thriller "Das Boot", and continued on "Die unendliche Geschichte". At this point, Hollywood already took notice of his talent, thanks to the international success of "Das Boot" and his associated Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography . Vacano shot "RoboCop" for maverick director Paul Verhoeven, and continued to work with the Verhoeven on "Total Recall" (1990), "Showgirls" (1995), "Starship Troopers" (1997) and "Hollow Man" (2000).

Jost Vacano received numerous awards for his work, which is also the subject of the books "Jost Vacano – Die Kamera als Auge des Zuschauers" by Marco Kregel (2005) and "Der Kameramann Jost Vacano. Visuelle Konzepte und Strategien seiner Kameraarbeit" by Bernd Giesemann (2017).

Beginning in 2008, Vacano filed several lawsuits for so-called "fairness compensation" against the production company Bavaria due to the huge and sustained worldwide success of "Das Boot". The legal disputes dragged on for 14 years through several instances and went all the way to the German Federal Supreme Court. In the end, a settlement was reached in which Vacano received around 160,000 euros from public broadcaster ARD and around 500,000 euros from Bavaria and EuroVideo - which he says roughly covered his legal costs. His main goal, however, was to set an example so that other professions such as "editors or set designers" would also "participate in the success of their work in the future".