Was very disappointed on our recent trip to the Maldives. I spent hours waiting for the fruit bats to come out to play so I could photograph them in mid flight. When I got home and looked at the pics they were all horribly blurred. So was everything else I took with that lens (140 - 600 equivalent). Now I know handheld shots at that length are ambitious but some (actually most) should have come out as the camera has a pretty good IS and I used high shutter speeds.

Put the camera on a tripod, attached a remote shutter release and fired off a few shots in the garden. My suspicions were confirmed - the auto focus was way off. Packed it up and sent it off to Olympus for a warranty repair. The lens arrived back today. A few test shots in the garden suggested that it was indeed fixed. I decided to try some real life shots and hung the camera around my neck before taking Jet for a walk. I'm not going to pretend any of these were intended to be good or that I took any time over them. I was testing the focus so just pointed and shot while walking.

Camera: Olympus E30
Lens: Oly 70 - 300 ED
Settings: Fully auto (but I did limit the ISO to 400/800)
Zoom: All at max - 300 (600) mm
Other: Most shots taken while moving

Think you'll agree its working now and worth lugging along on the next holiday