Meditations on memory and focus

I don't know if it is a peculiarity of the eye, the brain, or the camera lens but I can never seem to get the focus on the camera to match what I see or remember.  As I flew home from India over Greenland, I looked out of the window and saw a plane that seemed to be just below us - so close I thought.  Contrails erupted from the tips of its engines and I could see clearly the logo of the other airline and dots of the windows reflecting the glacier and fjords below both of us.  But in the photo I took with my phone, the plane is far away and a pixelated blur against the horizon and clouds.  

Was it an illusion of the mind and eye that when I looked out the window it seemed to zoom in or is a fault in my iPhone camera skills to be able to mirror this focus and clarity?

This is probably a testable hypothesis or googleable question, but I like the idea that my brain and eye can make the sunset and the nights sky better IRL than the camera of my phone.  

I want to be able to pull that clarity on my self and my time.  I wish that I could see it better than it is captured by a camera or a word, but the reality is that I cannot and it slips away so fast.  

Even the image that I had so clear of the plane, that seemed so profound, is losing its realness.  Pieces I can remember - the parts I described above.  Those even closer images are zoomed in and crisp, but the rest of the details are just an outline between them and now as I write the memory becomes this. I see the blurry edges like a sketch drawing and the focus sections blown up around.  

Will that fade to be replaced with just words and memory of what it felt like to write this? The ache in my hand, the tired feeling from being up too late, the drying tears of the sad book that I finished before looking down on the plane, my cold from India and my suppressed cough in my throat, the sweat on my sandals and my cracked lips. 

No, that too will fade.  Even as I read these words in the future I will have to imagine this moment.  Maybe then I will remember but each time I try it shifts and changes by the act of remembering