Well, the fisheye lens arrived yesterday. Taking a panorama with it requires only two or three shots, so that's sweet. But the quality ain't great, which is what I expected, given that an 180-degree field of view has to be crammed onto one small CCD chip.

Is the result good enough? I'm not sure, and I need more opinions. I need to practice more with the lens in order to get well-stitched panos that y'all can look at and opine on.

The lens itself weighs at least three or four times what the camera does, and the pano rig does not support it, so I have to hold this monster manually while the shutter releases. It's quite a workout.

At this point, if the fisheye isn't good enough, it's back to considering the Panoscan. But with an added consideration: getting a used one. Panoscan has their Mark II model out now, so people are starting to dump their Mark Is and several have appeared on eBay, although none of them have sold for their minimal bids of $8,500 to $10,000.