Thats a good question.
Without getting way too technical, your camera, video or still, will attempt to calculate the F Stop (how much light) and the Exposure (how long do we illuminate the sensor) (or film).
You image is a toughy. Color film has a very narrow range of exposure. B/W, can become very wide. Digital sensors are another animal. Some narrow. Others really wide. By creating 5-7 images of a scene with various exposures and then grabbing shadow detail from one and highlight detail from another, a digital image can look really great.
Unfortunately, you are probably using Auto and creating a JPG as a result.
Kodak discovered the average 'scene' reflects 18% of the sunlight. In Auto Mode, your camera does the same. Usually losing detail in shadows and also the highlights.
A JPG produces a smaller image than the camera sensor can produce. It does this by taking surrounding pixel values and averaging several into a single pixel.
A RAW Image is a 1:1 ratio of pixel count on the sensor to the File produced. Your program takes that data and produces a JPG or TIF or whatever, you have a great deal of latitude to 'stretch' or 'collapse' the exposure given.
So, what to do?
An easy solution is to leave it in Auto and live with it. Another, use Manual exposure and set the ASA Speed, F Stop and Exposure yourself. Favoring shadow or highlights. RAW gives you the data and you can produce one image for the shadows, another for highlights etc. Then blend them together. In photoshop etc. But that means a great deal of Post Processing time on a computer to make that happen.
Hope this is helpful ...