One of the most common mistakes we see in DIY CCTV setups isn't a lack of cameras — it's poor placement. A property with six well-positioned cameras will consistently outperform one with ten cameras placed without a clear plan. Here's how to think through placement properly.
Start With What You're Actually Trying to Capture
Before deciding where cameras go, decide what you actually need to see clearly: a face at the front door, a number plate on the driveway, general activity across a garden, or a wide overview of a car park. Each of these needs a different camera angle, height, and lens — a single "general purpose" placement rarely does all of them well at once.
Entrances: Height and Angle Matter Most
Front and back door cameras should be mounted at roughly 2.1–2.4 metres — high enough to avoid easy tampering, low enough to still capture a clear, identifiable face rather than just the top of someone's head. Angle the camera slightly downward toward the area directly in front of the door, and avoid pointing it directly into oncoming sunlight or a porch light, both of which will wash out the image at exactly the times you need it most.
Driveways and Vehicle Areas
Number plate capture requires a different setup than general activity monitoring — a narrower field of view aimed along the direction of travel, at a height and angle that catches the plate rather than just the roof of the vehicle. If you want both a wide overview of the driveway and clear plate capture, that's usually two cameras, not one trying to do both jobs.
Perimeter and Boundary Coverage
For larger properties — the kind we regularly see in Nawalapitiya estate properties or larger homes around Digana — boundary cameras benefit from a wider field of view and strong IR night vision range, since the goal here is detecting movement and direction of approach rather than facial identification at a distance. Overlapping coverage between adjacent cameras avoids gaps where someone could pass along a boundary undetected.
Common Blind Spots People Miss
- Side gates and secondary access points — often the actual point of entry in a break-in, yet frequently left uncovered because attention goes to the main entrance.
- Under carports and covered areas — shadowed zones that can defeat motion detection tuned for open, well-lit areas.
- Areas directly below wall-mounted cameras — every camera has a blind spot directly underneath it; a second camera or a wider mounting position can close this gap on high-value entry points.
- Roof access points — flat roof sections, ladders left accessible, or utility access — an overlooked route for a determined intruder.
Indoor Placement Considerations
Indoor cameras generally need less range but more thoughtful positioning around glare — glass doors, mirrors, and bright windows behind a subject can all cause a camera to underexpose the actual person of interest. Hallway cameras positioned at the end of a corridor, looking down its length, tend to give better coverage than one mounted midway trying to cover both directions.
Commercial and Retail Considerations
For retail environments, camera placement typically needs to cover: entrances (for identification), cash points (for transaction verification), stockrooms (for internal theft prevention), and general sales floor activity. Overhead wide-angle cameras work well for general floor coverage, but cash points benefit from a dedicated, more direct angle that captures both the till and the customer clearly — a wide shot alone often isn't detailed enough for dispute resolution.
Industrial and Warehouse Placement
Large open floor areas need cameras positioned to minimise gaps between racking or equipment, with entry points and loading bays given dedicated coverage rather than being an afterthought of general floor cameras. Dust, vibration, and equipment interference are also real considerations in industrial settings — camera housing quality matters as much as placement here.
A Simple Planning Method
Walk your property with a notepad (or your phone) and mark every entrance, blind spot, and area of concern before ordering a single camera. For each point, decide what specifically you need that camera to capture — identification, general activity, or perimeter detection — since that determines the right camera type and mounting position, not just "add a camera here."
Testing Your Placement Before Committing
Before final mounting, it's worth temporarily positioning a camera and reviewing test footage at the actual time of day (and night) you most care about — lighting conditions change dramatically between midday sun, dusk, and full darkness, and a position that looks perfect at 2pm can be nearly useless at 9pm once glare from a streetlamp or a security light enters the frame. A short test period before permanent mounting and cabling catches these issues while they're still cheap to fix.
Getting placement right from the start avoids the common and costly mistake of installing a system, discovering the blind spots months later, and having to add cameras (and cabling) after the fact. Our CCTV installation service includes a full placement plan as part of every free site survey, across Kandy and our wider service areas.