The panoramic assistant
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
If you've ever tried to take a panoramic shot with a regular camera, chances are it didn't turn out great. The level of suckiness will increase proportionally with the number of shots you are trying to stitch together.
Some cameras try to help you out with guiding lines in their viewfinder, or provide you with stitching software on your desktop computer. But now there's an alternative hardware solution called the Panamatic.
This tripod attachment helps you stably move your camera horizontally. The wheel clicks at fixed intervals, telling you when to take a shot, of up to 12 shots. There are certain instructions as to what kind of lens you can use but it looks like most compacts should work fine.
You can buy this gadget from Lenspen online, according to OhGizmo, for $24.95.
(Source: Crave Asia)
I've recently stumbled onto this demo software from UBC.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html
It's obviously short on the usability front, but it works, and it produces much nicer results than the Canon Stitch Assist, especially if the src frames aren't in a nice line.