I might be being a photography noob again, but could the same effect be had using a photo stitching program? Or will the fact youd be focusing long distance, then close, and then long again as you pan, negatively effect the outcome? Id have thought itd distort the image sort of in the same way a fisheye lens would?

Id say in that case you should be able to save yourself some money (even though the lenses are cheapish) and just follow the advice the photo gurus here gave me in the thread about photo stitching a few weeks ago

It really is pretty straight forward, and easy to see if itll do what you want. Download hugin and install it. Then go find a sizeable wall and set yourself the distance you want to be away from it. Then just take a series of pictures covering the whole area. Follow the wizard in hugin, and with any luck itll do the rest for you. If not its a simple enough (but a little time consuming) job of matching up the points that are in 2 or more photos. Hopefully youll then be able to see if it does what you want

Right Hugin it is then
I also have Photoshop CS3 but dont have the time to learn it at the moment. Hugin may well be what I need. Off out to practice now

Considering I went from doing it in PS to hugin, Id say there are very good reasons for using Hugin, not least the fact that the end results are much much better, even in fully auto mode.

You can do everything you can do in PS, and more, and better, in Hugin. PS may be an iota easier to use, but that extra effort is worth it tbh.