Camera placement is where most DIY security installs go wrong. People put cameras where they’re easy to mount — under the eaves at the nearest corner, on the garage wall facing out — rather than where they’ll actually capture something useful. The result is a system that technically has cameras everywhere but would produce footage of limited value if anything actually happened.
Getting placement right requires thinking about what you need to record, not just where cameras are convenient. Here’s how we approach it.
Start With Entry Points, Not Blind Spots
The primary purpose of residential cameras is to capture usable footage of anyone who enters or attempts to enter your property. That means cameras should be positioned to capture faces and identifying features at the points where someone would have to pass to gain entry — the front gate, the driveway entry, the rear gate, and any side access paths. A camera covering a large open section of fence line is less useful than a camera covering the gate in that fence, because anyone intending to enter will pass through the gate.
Think about every route onto your property and make sure each one has a camera that would capture a face-level image of someone using it. On most Brisbane residential blocks, that’s typically 4–6 cameras depending on the number of distinct access points.
Height and Angle: The Trade-Off Between Coverage and Identification
Mounting a camera at 2.5–3 metres gives the best balance between identification quality and coverage area. Lower than 2 metres and the camera can be easily obstructed or tampered with. Higher than 4 metres and the angle becomes too steep to capture face detail — you end up with footage of hats and the tops of heads rather than identifiable faces.
At entry points — gates, doors — aim for a camera that captures a person’s face as they face the entry point, at a distance of 2–4 metres. This typically means positioning the camera on the opposite side of the gate from the approach, at head height, rather than above the gate looking down. It feels counterintuitive but produces far more useful identification footage.
The Driveway and Garage
Driveways serve two purposes: they show you who approaches the house from the street, and they record vehicle details — make, model, colour, registration — for any vehicle that enters your property. The camera position for vehicle recording is different from the position for face identification. For vehicles, you want a camera angled to capture a straight-on or near-straight view of the front registration plate as the car enters. For face identification of the driver, a second camera or a wider-angle camera positioned to capture the driver’s side window works better.
We often use two cameras on driveways for this reason — one for the plate, one for the occupant. On smaller properties with a single camera budget for the driveway, a wide-angle camera at the vehicle entry point is a reasonable compromise.
Rear and Side Access
This is the area most residential installs under-cover. The back of a Brisbane house is typically less visible from the street, has more access points (rear gates, fences that can be climbed, secondary garage access), and is the entry route most preferred by experienced burglars for exactly those reasons. Every rear gate and side access path should have dedicated coverage.
Fence lines themselves are less important to cover than the points where someone would have to transition from the fence to the ground — the landing spot on the inside. A camera positioned to cover the area immediately inside a climbable fence will capture anyone who comes over it, regardless of which section they used.
Interior Cameras: Often Overlooked, Often the Most Useful
An interior camera — particularly one covering the main living area or hallway — often provides the most identification-quality footage of anyone who does enter the property. Exterior footage is frequently compromised by hats, hoods, darkness, or distance. Interior footage, where someone has to move through the space with more confidence, often captures clear face images under controlled lighting.
For families with children, interior cameras also serve a different purpose — checking that everyone got home safely, monitoring access during school hours, or verifying that contractors are only in the areas they should be. We configure interior camera privacy zones for bedrooms and bathrooms so the system covers common areas without intruding on private spaces.
Let Us Design the Layout for Your Property
Camera placement decisions made without seeing the property produce suboptimal results every time. Jarrod walks properties across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast and designs camera layouts based on the actual access risk profile of each site. The assessment is free. Call 0490 130 339 or contact us through the website to book a time.
