Hi there, I am brandnew at this and was hoping to spped up the learning curve with others expertise! Using a 300 mm zoom, the left and right edges were soft after stitching. Do I need to back up from the full 300 (it’s a 70-300 zoom), the scene was all infinity for focus (range of mountains). Manual focused and everything else was sharp. Should I choose something special when stitching? Thank you!

Hi.
I’m no pano expert, but I have decades of photo experience. I’m thinking it might be good for you to go higher, lower, and wider for your panos than just the area you want. That way, you can crop the image to what you do want and get rid of the softness that almost all lenses exhibit at their edges.