The title for this thread asks about realistic shots per charge and the original post adds a few qualifiers (no live view and limited chimping). I have been following and reading most of the comments and think I can summarize our user's experience in a few points:
- Thousands of shots per charge are possible
- Several contributors to this thread get less than 1000 shots per charge
- Frequent use of the rear LCD will severely reduce the number of shots per charge
- To stretch the amount of usage:
- Turn off the info display
- Turn off instant review
- Don't use live view
- Don't chimp
A few other factors that are sort of a given:
- Video is power hungry
- The on-board flash is power hungry
One thing that did not come up in the discussion is whether frequent AF use (say tracking moving objects in AF-C mode) may decrease the shots per charge. I think it safe to assume that the answer is yes.
Steve