Sometimes there is the feeling that the digital camera's electronic sensor can acutally see more than the human eye. It is accurate to say that advances in the camera's sensor continue to get closer to mimicking human vision, but there are still great differences.
Research shows that the human eye is capable of capturing motion at no greater than 1/10th of a second, something magicians figured out a long time ago. At the same time, the eye focuses from foreground to infinity almost instantaneously. Robert Musberger, in his book Single-Camera Video Production, argues, "The best professional digital camera cannot reveal detail in light variations greater than 80:1..." The human eye, meanwhile reveals light variations of greater than 1000:1. We sense our environment, visually, at such an acute range, that even the most expensive photographic equipment have yet to fulfill our expectations.
This exposure was made at ISO 1600 at f/2.0 at a 20th of a second. The digital sensor in a situation like this is being asked to replicate what our eye sees, but the results often lead to disappointment.
The problem lies mostly in our desire to reproduce a scene, a memory, or a moment exactly the way we experienced it. In other words, we are setting ourselves up for a compromise between what we see and what is possible to capture on film or sensor.
As we attempt to approximate our experience with the camera, there is always the likelihood that we will ultimately be let down. The camera has its limitations, especially in its capacity to replicate the dynamic contrast and color gamut range of the human eye.