[Zig]

Penguin: as I remember, about £40(UK)..but one gets free upgrades.
Irma: yes, meter off lit grass or grey card, then keep in manual. I used to use a tripod but I don't bother now: they work best if you have about 20% overlap between frames. I find the 50mm works the best: wide angles tend to introduce funny variables because of parallax. I find it easier if I hold the camera vertically, shoot the bottom row, then work back along the "top" row.
Filters are a problem, so I stay away from them. Polarisers : difficult because of the uneven effect; more reason why not to use a wide-angle too. Graduated filters too cause problems, as then you're restricted to just one panorama line, instead of a a larger mosaic.
I get round that problem by shooting without filters, but doing one of 2 things in pp:
1.convert the whole lot of raws once at correct exposure, then again at minus 2 stops. Do TWO panoramas: one correct, one underexposed. Combine the 2 panoramas in something like Photomatix so as to get a "HDR".
Number 2 I find easier: do the panorama, exposing for land rather than sky..but then use contrast masking to try and bring in sky detail once the panorama is finished. I cheat in most of mine, adding a blue or grey grad in software afterwards.
It's all surprisingly easy to start off, but many people enjoy making life quite a challenge: for instance, those working on huge(giga-pixel) images might invest in special trpod heads that minimise parallax, a little unnecessary for the occasional practitioner.