Of the photogrammetry software I've tested Photoscan is certainly the best for quality of output and ease of use whilst still providing access to an assortment of controls and tweaking for more advanced users, including scripting for automating more complex workflows.
At it's most basic level you simply drag and drop images into it and then step through the Workflow menu in order. Each stage has a few basic options to adjust quality/speed. You can also queue up all of the steps in one big batch. There is also a reasonably active and very helpful forum, just like here.
The Pro version provides georeferencing support and the addition of control points, but the retail price is up there with the rest of them at an arm and a leg (and maybe even your first born child) unless you qualify for the educational discount. There's not too much software in this field that won't cost you $3000+, even for just the point cloud processing.
Things Photoscan doesn't do so well:
1. With the standard version there is no control over scaling so you have to size your model in another application (easy enough in Meshlab which is free)
2. UV Mapping is not very efficient (but the photo blending is pretty good)
vs. 123D Catch (I've repocessed a lot of projects now)
1. Better image alignment out of the box
2. Greater accuracy of model, fewer artefacts
3. You get the maximum resolution your images are capable of providing
4. Size of project only limited by your computer (and you've beefed it up for TG, right?
)
As PabloMack rightly points out there are limitations to photogrammetry, just as there are limitations to laser scanning and most other methods of 3D data capture. For capturing the geometry of smoothly coloured objects we use the same trick for laser scanning glass/reflective surfaces... coat the object with a fine powder. We use 21mp cameras and I find that it doesn't take much fine detail in a surface to register, but it is always a potential problem.
Nearly all methods of 3D capture use triangulation so narrow cracks/crevices always present a problem. The larger museums etc... will use a combination of technologies to combine the best data/capabilities of each method.
For a lot of stuff that's come across my desk, a handheld scanner would be nice but from what we've seen you're looking at $20-30K for decent quality and $30-50K to add coloured textures. I've also tested various options with Kinects and while they have their niche the resolution is still a limitation (PabloMack: have you tried
http://reconstructme.net/).
You can also get some good results out of the free SFM applications but they require some relatively complex set up for best results so ease of use puts it out of the range of casual users.