pics with bunched up histograms - fix them?

hi,

took some pics at 3pm on a bright sunny hawaii day but not a lot of contrast, a common situation here. no matter how I changed the exposure in camera the historgram was always bunched up together. when I changed exposures it just moved right or left across the screen but never spread.

This pic is shot at f11 and shutter speed 1/250. first is the original pic then the levels in PS

Next is the levels after I increased contrast by moving sliders in, resulting in the spread out levels and the better photo.

wondering why in camera I could not get the better contrast with the spread out histogram, only one bunched together. Not all that thrilled with the doctored results actually either.
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Msongs
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