Sneaky Microsoft released an iPhone app recently called Photosynth that’s pretty amazing. Super simple to use, just: launch it, “tap to start” shooting pics, and pan around the room while it automatically grabs the images it needs to stitch together panoramas that are easy to share on their Photosynth.net website.
Want better quality and higher resolution? Use your DSLR and their free Image Composite Editor (Windows app) to generate the panos. To get it looking just right requires “aligning the nodal point” of the camera. A little bracket like this would come in handy.
You could also go whole hog and pick up a GigaPan. But these were shot with my iPhone 4 on a recent hike…
[8 June update: swapped out boring panos with more interesting ones.]