Panorama info list. (Last updated August 2013)
Below are some useful links.
http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/index.html Overview of Panorama photography techniques by Hans Nyberg. Very informative.
http://wiki.panotools.org/Main_Page Best source for information about panoramas. Many thanks to Erik Krause and others who keep this important resource up to date.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/ the panotools forum
http://panotoolsng.586017.n4.nabble.com/ my preferred interface for the panotools forum
http://ivrpa.org/ International vr photographers association.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm very good and clearly explained general photography tutorials.
I use a Canon 6D with Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye or Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoomlens. A less expensive alternative would be any of the Canon or Nikon APS format DSLRs with a Sigma 8mm f3.5. I use a Nodal Ninja 3 or Nodal Ninja 5 Panorama Head. Photoshop CS2, CS3, CS4, CS5 or CS6 for RAW > 16bit Tif conversion, PTGui Pro for stitching and blending. Practically all panoramas have been shot exposure bracketed (between 3 and 15 exposure-brackets). The dynamic range is then compressed, either using "Fusing" in PTGUi Pro or with Enfuse, or tonemapped using FDRTools. Some other tonemappers are Photomatix, SNS-HDR and Picturenaut (free)
More information regarding the above equipment and software list can be found at the panotools wiki. It is important to always shoot in RAW and do the Photoshopping with 16 bit tifs.
There is a free Open Source project stitcher, called Hugin:
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
Enfuse (to "fuse" an exposure series) can be downloaded here: http://enblend.sourceforge.net/
Erik Krause has made some "Droplets" to semi-automate Enfuse. They are included in the Hugin distro package.
There is also an excellent GUI for Enfuse, by Ingemar Bergmark here: http://software.bergmark.com/enfuseGUI/Main.html
When using the Nikkor 10.5mm or the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye on a camera with a full sized sensor, such as the Canon 5D, the lens shades need to be removed. This is a bit scary, especially on the Tokina. Instructions on how to do this on the Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye: http://michel.thoby.free.fr/Adaptateur_EOS_Nikon/Sawing-off_the_sun-shield.html
Instructions for lens shade removal on the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye: http://michel.thoby.free.fr/Tokina_10_17/Shaving_the_hood/Wim_method.html
Finally, Michel has an excellent review of Samyang, the newest fisheye of very good quality and relatively low cost:
http://michel.thoby.free.fr/SAMYANG/Early%20test%20report.html
There is now also a very good, but expensive Canon 8mm-15mm fisheye zoomlens with a removable lens shade.
The only way to view panoramas on mobile devices is with the use of html5 and javascript. KRPano and Pano2VR are at the moment the only two pano authoring programs that can also produce html5 panos. Pano2VR is arguably the easiest way to produce vr tours, but FPP and KRPano provide some unique tools for various special effects. KRPano also has some very useful display options, as for instance an "architectural" mode, where walls of building remain vertical when one pans up.
