Thanks, guys.

mjs - The Helicon feature is built into CS4?!

Paul - I think the multiprocessor version is a bit more expensive than $150, no?

I'm a slow learner, but I think I'm finally beginning to understand what Brenizer is talking about. He shoots with a telephoto lens at close range for narrow dof and then stitches to recreate a wide-angle field-of-view, thereby decreasing the effective dof. (If this is common knowledge for any of you guys, it certainly wasn't for me!)

What I still don't quite get is a) how you shoot the additional frames that you'll be stitching in? Wouldn't you need to be careful about shooting at the exact same angle to retain proper perspective? And it must be a royal pain to keep focus on the subject in different parts of the frame while shooting other to-be-stitched sections of the scene.

And how one accomplishes any of this while shooting a living, breathing being - with strobes, no less! - is completely and utterly beyond me.

Anyway... lots to learn. Thanks again for the input!