760D battery life - is it really only 440 shots?

SnappyChappie wrote:

With my 650D (LP-E8) batteries i found that during all day shooting and chimping on vacation i generally use 1½ batteries [except one time i used up both and i had to resort to the smartphone!] so i too have gotten around 550 shots per battery which includes of course powering the lens, i.e. auto-focussing, image stabilisation aa well as the odd flash and the LCD brightness high in daytime. But it's not only about the shooting but also stand-by/off time with the battery in the camera i didn't feel that it was draining any power. So when i saw that the 760/750D come with a smaller battery it did put me off and sway me to the 70D with the bigger LP-E6 batteries.

That being said i'm finding i'm having to charge the 70D's batteries far more often than the 650D's even though i haven't used it as much and i find this a little irritating. The spare battery i got for the 70D is the LP-E6N which i believe is a larger capacity version but this just seems to level it out similar to the 650D's LP-E8s.

I am of the opinion that it's the OVF that's causing a continuous drain on the 70D's battery and similarly with the 760D. I say this because when i switch off the 70D then remove the battery, full or exhausted, i can see the viewfinder go very dark which was a surprise when i first saw it as the 650D didn't do so, so i can only come to the conclusion that there is constant power to the viewfinder even though it's optical and not electronic - and i have notice the same effect in the shop with the 760D. I can only guess this is because they share similar OVF tech to display the information in the viewfinder - but why is it still powered even when the camera is off? This seems a bit wasteful to me and i don't like it, if i switch it off it should be off, period. Standby & still powered less of an issue. But why does it go dark? Does the information display plate in the 'finder block out so much light??

Also if there are Duracell brand third-party LP-E17s i suggest you avoid them as from experience their replacement cells have a poor life-span compared to Canon's and so not worth it in the long-run even if initially cheaper.

I believe it's because it's an intelligent viewfinder, it has a transmissive LCD screen giving it the ability to overlay information. This is why the screen looks dark or milky when the battery is removed. Indeed it does use a tiny bit of power.

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/digital_camera_features/transmissive_lcd_viewfinders.do

http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2013/eos1dx_intelligent_viewfinder_display.shtml