Late last year Canon revealed at the 2023 IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting) that it's working on a new design of image sensor. The technology is a development of Canon's existing dual-pixel autofocus sensor technology. Launched in 2013 in the EOS 70D, DPAF improves autofocus speed when using contrast-detect AF. Around 80% of the pixels on the image sensor incorporate two separate light-sensitive photodiodes. The signal from these is combined when capturing an image, but can be split during autofocussing, so the camera can measure the difference between the two individual signals to determine the distance of your subject more quickly. It's proven to be an effective way to speed up contrast-detect AF, as without DPAF such focussing can be prone to focus hunting.
