A good camera in the wrong spot will still give you poor footage. That is the single biggest lesson we have learned across three decades of CCTV Camera Installation Sydney wide, and it holds true no matter how many megapixels your camera has. A 4K camera mounted too high, angled into the sun, or pointed at the wrong stretch of fence line will still leave you with unusable footage when it actually matters. Placement is not an afterthought, it is the decision that determines whether your system earns its keep.
How High Should Security Cameras Be Mounted?
There is no single perfect height for every scene, but for most residential properties, the sweet spot sits between 2.4 and 3 metres above ground. This range balances two competing needs. Mount a camera too low and it becomes an easy target, within arm’s reach for anyone wanting to redirect it, cover the lens, or cut the cable. Mount it too high and you lose the one thing that actually matters after an incident, a usable facial shot. At the 2.4 to 3 metre range, a person walking toward the camera is captured from roughly shoulder height up, which is enough to identify a face rather than just the top of a head.
Under the eaves, or soffit, is a popular mounting position on single storey homes, since it offers a shallow downward angle along with natural protection from the weather. Whatever height you land on, angle the camera slightly downward so it captures the space people actually walk through, not empty sky or excess roofline.
Covering the Right Entry Points
Camera placement should follow how people, vehicles and incidents actually move through a property, not simply go wherever is easiest to mount a bracket. The entry points that matter most for almost every home are:
- Front door, covering deliveries, visitors and anyone approaching directly.
- Side access, one of the most overlooked zones and, not coincidentally, one of the more common routes for anyone trying to avoid the more visible front of the house.
- Rear door and backyard, particularly if the boundary backs onto a laneway, park or a neighbouring property with easy access.
- Garage, whether attached or detached, since it is often a secondary entry point as well as somewhere valuable equipment and vehicles are kept.
Before settling on a spot, it helps to decide what each camera actually needs to answer later. Does it need to identify a face at the front door? Confirm how a vehicle entered the driveway? Show whether someone approached a side gate? Working backward from that question shapes both the position and the lens choice far better than guessing.
Driveway Monitoring
A driveway camera is one of the most valuable angles on the whole property. It captures vehicles coming and going, gives a wide view of anyone approaching from the street, and is often the angle that ends up mattering most if a number plate or vehicle needs to be identified later. Aim for a position that catches the full length of the driveway rather than just the entrance, and make sure the lens is wide enough to avoid cutting off shoulder movement on anyone walking alongside a parked car.
Avoiding Glare and Glass Reflections
Glare is one of the quickest ways to turn an otherwise good system into an expensive disappointment. A camera pointed directly at the rising or setting sun, or aimed straight into a security light or a neighbour’s floodlight, can wash out entirely at the wrong time of day. Mounting under an eave or fascia helps reduce direct sun exposure, and angling cameras away from reflective surfaces like white walls or glass keeps footage usable around the clock.
This becomes especially relevant if you are considering pointing a camera out through a window rather than mounting it outside. Infrared night vision cameras rely on built in LEDs to see in the dark, and when that light hits glass, it bounces straight back into the lens. The result is a washed out, glowing frame that captures nothing useful, and motion detection often fails to trigger properly through glass as well. If an outdoor position is not possible and a window is the only option, turning off the camera’s built in infrared and relying on external lighting outside the glass, along with keeping the camera as close to the window as possible, reduces the problem but rarely eliminates it entirely. Wherever it is achievable, mounting the camera outside rather than behind glass gives far more reliable results, both day and night.
Covering Blind Spots
Every property has at least one gap that gets missed on a first walk through, a garden bed that blocks a sightline, a fence line that is easy to climb but sits outside any covered zone, or the awkward stretch between two camera angles that neither one quite reaches. These blind spots are exactly what separates a system that looks complete on paper from one that actually holds up. Rather than mounting cameras purely for a wide, general view, layering a mix of wide angle overview cameras with tighter, more targeted cameras at key points helps close these gaps without needing to double the camera count.
Privacy Considerations
Installing CCTV on your own property is generally allowed across Australia, but privacy expectations still apply, and the rules can vary depending on your state. As a general principle, cameras should be positioned to cover your own property rather than capturing footage into a neighbour’s yard, windows or private outdoor areas. Angle cameras down toward your own boundary lines rather than out across a fence, and where a camera’s field of view might reasonably catch a shared space, it is worth reviewing the angle before it is permanently fixed in place. Getting this right protects your neighbourly relationships as much as it protects your own footage from becoming a dispute later on.
Getting Placement Right the First Time
Placement is where most disappointing CCTV systems actually go wrong, not the brand or the camera count. At Cranebrook Security Installations, we have spent more than 30 years mapping properties across Sydney and positioning cameras around the way people, vehicles and incidents actually move through a site, rather than mounting wherever is quickest. Every quote is free, so you can find out exactly where your cameras should go before anything is fixed to the wall.
If you would like a placement plan built around your own property, get in touch for a free, no obligation assessment.
