Positioning CCTV cameras for maximum night coverage

Why the dark changes the rules

Night footage is won or lost long before you clip a camera to the wall. In daylight almost any angle will do, because the sensor has light to spare. After dusk your camera is working at the edge of its ability, and often leaning on infrared LEDs whose light behaves nothing like sunshine. Infrared bounces off gutters, soffits, wet tarmac, number plates and nearby brickwork. Point a camera along a wall and you get a bright white blur; point it into a street lamp and you get flare that swallows everything behind it.

The principle is straightforward: give each camera a clear, uncluttered view of the ground you actually care about, with as little reflected light as possible coming back at the lens. That usually means fewer cameras, positioned better, rather than one wide unit trying to cover half the street.

Start at the entry points

Front doors, back doors, patio doors, side gates and any ground-floor window someone could reach are your priorities. Get these right and you have covered the routes that matter most.

• Frame the doorway and an approach of at least three metres. A face pressed right against the lens is often too close to identify properly.
• Mount slightly to one side of the door rather than dead centre above it, so you capture people walking up rather than just the tops of heads.
• Keep the lens out of the direct glow of a porch light. A lamp shining straight into the camera will wash out faces, so angle the camera or fit a shielded lamp.
• Choose a turret or wedge camera with an adjustable ball joint. Many fixed bullet cameras simply cannot be tilted enough to get a decent angle.

Driveways, side paths and the dark corners

The driveway is usually the second priority, and it is where a lot of people get it wrong by aiming only at the car.

• Cover the full run of the drive, so you see someone walking up as well as the vehicle itself.
• Watch side return paths and alleyways, especially where a fence throws a shadow for much of the night.
• Do not forget sheds, garages, bin stores and rear gates. These are the classic unlit corners that burglars favour.
• Overlapping views beat one ambitious camera. Two units with clear, modest fields of view will outperform a single wide-angle camera every time at night.

Height and angle: the two numbers that matter most

For a domestic property, roughly 2.2 to 2.8 metres is the sweet spot. That is high enough to be out of easy reach but low enough to give you a useful downward angle, typically 15 to 30 degrees. Go much above four metres and you will spend most of the night filming the tops of heads and hoods. Go much lower and the camera becomes easy to knock, cover or unscrew.

Distance matters just as much. A camera thirty metres from a face cannot give you a usable identification, however good the sensor. Keep cameras within a sensible distance of the points you actually want to record, and be honest about how far the infrared really reaches — quoted ranges are usually measured in ideal conditions, so expect about half that in practice. Avoid pointing a camera at glass, shiny signage, wet paintwork or a neighbouring wall close behind your subject, as the reflection will flare and ruin the frame.

Don't film next door: keep it lawful and neighbourly

Positioning is a legal and social matter as well as a technical one. A domestic system that covers only your own property sits in a different place under data protection law than one that captures a neighbour's garden, their windows or a shared pavement.

• Angle each camera so your property boundary sits at the edge of the frame. Test this at night as well as in daylight, because infrared illumination widens what is visible.
• Use the privacy masking zones built into most cameras and recording apps to blank out a neighbour's windows, driveway or the public footpath.
• Have a word with neighbours before you fit anything that might overlook them. A two-minute conversation prevents most complaints.
• Keep recordings only as long as you genuinely need them, and never share clips publicly. Check current data protection guidance for households if you are unsure.

Small habits that sharpen night footage

• Clean the lens and housing a couple of times a year. Dust and cobwebs flare badly under infrared.
• Trim foliage that sways into the beam. Moving branches will set off alerts from dusk until dawn.
• Set motion zones that exclude the pavement, passing traffic and trees, so you only get alerts worth acting on.
• Add gentle warm-white light at key points — a dusk-to-dawn fitting or a camera with a built-in spotlight — rather than relying on infrared alone. Colour footage at night is far more useful for describing clothing and vehicle colour.
• Review the footage after a few nights, not just on installation day. Wind, rain and headlights change everything.

Get the positioning right and the rest of your setup has a chance to shine. Take an hour to check each camera's view after dark, adjust the angle by a few degrees, and you will end up with footage that is genuinely useful rather than merely reassuring.