The quick answer
Most properties need fewer cameras than expected — four well-placed usually beat eight arranged for symmetry.
Start from entry points and sight lines, not from the number of walls. Cover how people actually enter and move.
A camera fighting backlight, or mounted too high, produces footage that identifies nobody.
Retention matters as much as coverage. Storage sized at the recorder default will often overwrite the week you needed.
Cameras draw continuous power, so they fail during outages unless the security load sits on your backup path.
Why placement beats camera count
The most common way a CCTV system fails is not that it had too few cameras. It is that the cameras it had were pointing at the wrong things.
A camera mounted high on a wall covering a wide area produces a wide view in which nobody is identifiable. A camera facing a gate with the morning sun behind it produces silhouettes. A camera covering the driveway but not the pedestrian gate covers the entrance nobody uses.
Coverage is a design problem, not a quantity problem. That is why a survey matters more than a camera specification.
What actually needs covering
Work through your property in this order:
1. Entry points
Every way a person can get in — main gate, pedestrian gate, side access, back door, and any point where a wall is low or a neighbouring structure allows access.
2. Choke points
Places everyone must pass through: a driveway, a corridor, a reception area, a stairwell. One camera at a choke point can do the work of several around a perimeter.
3. High-value areas
Stockrooms, till points, server rooms, equipment yards — wherever loss would actually hurt.
4. Blind sides
The sides of the building nobody overlooks, which is usually where a problem starts.
Typical coverage by property type
These are starting points that a survey confirms or revises — not fixed prescriptions.
Property
Usual priorities
Home or duplex
Gate and approach, pedestrian entrance, blind sides, main door
Apartment
Entrance, corridor or shared access, parking area
Shop or retail
Entrance, till point, stockroom door, public floor
Office
Reception, corridors, server or records room, rear access
Estate
Gatehouse, perimeter, common areas, vehicle entry and exit
Facility
Perimeter, loading and yard areas, zoned internal access
Recording and retention
Cameras produce footage. The recorder decides whether you still have it when you need it.
Retention depends on how many cameras record, at what resolution and frame rate, and how much storage is installed. Recorders ship with a default that is frequently far shorter than people assume — which is how footage of an incident is discovered to have been overwritten days earlier.
Decide the retention period you want first, then size the storage to deliver it. That is the correct order, and it is the one we follow.
Night imaging and lighting
Most incidents happen when visibility is poorest, so night performance is not a secondary specification.
Infrared gives you usable monochrome images in darkness. Hybrid or ColorVu-style cameras add white light to produce full-colour footage at night, which matters when clothing colour is the identifying detail. Which is appropriate depends on the position and the existing lighting there.
Existing lighting is part of the design. Scheduled or motion-triggered lighting supports the cameras rather than working against them — one reason surveillance and automation are often specified together.
The failure nobody plans for
Cameras, recorders and network equipment draw continuous power. When the supply drops, they stop — which is precisely the moment they matter most.
A security installation designed without the energy system behind it goes dark during outages. When Sunnovate designs both, the recording rack and controllers sit on the backup path from the start rather than being retrofitted onto it later. See energy solutions for how that is sized.
What to do next
Book a security survey. An engineer walks the property, maps entry points and sight lines, and produces a specification stating camera positions, types, retention period and equipment — something you can price and compare properly.
If you already know what you need, you can browse CCTV cameras and recorders directly.
Choosing the right camera for each position
Camera count and camera type are separate decisions. Once the positions are fixed, each one needs the format that suits what it has to see.
Dome / turret
Indoor areas, sheltered entrances, reception
Fixed field of view, less obtrusive
Bullet
Outdoor perimeter, driveways, long approaches
Visible — which is often the point
PTZ
Large open areas, yards, estates
Covers a wide area but looks at one place at a time
A common and expensive mistake is buying a PTZ to “cover everything”. It can look anywhere, but it is only ever looking somewhere — so an incident outside its current field of view is simply not recorded. PTZ works best alongside fixed cameras, not instead of them.
Resolution: where it matters and where it does not
Higher resolution is worth paying for at the positions where you need to identify a person — an entrance, a till point, a controlled door. At positions where you only need to detect that something moved, resolution matters far less, and the storage cost of recording everything at maximum resolution is significant.
Deciding this per position, rather than buying one specification for the whole property, usually reduces both hardware and storage cost.
Get your coverage planned properly
A survey maps your entry points and sight lines, then produces a specification stating positions, retention and equipment.
Frequently asked questions
Usually fewer than people expect. The priorities are the gate and approach, the pedestrian entrance, the blind sides of the building and the main door. A survey confirms how many positions that actually requires for your layout.
Yes. Remote viewing is standard on the network systems we install, and we configure it and demonstrate it before handover rather than leaving you with a manual.
It depends on the number of cameras, the resolution and frame rate, and the storage installed. Decide the retention period you want first and size the storage to deliver it, rather than accepting the recorder default.
The systems we supply use infrared or hybrid white-light illumination for night imaging, and several produce full colour after dark. Which is appropriate depends on the position and its existing lighting.
That depends on whether the security load was included in the backup design. When Sunnovate handles both energy and security it is, which is the main argument for specifying them together.
Better placement, first. Beyond that, resolution matters most at the points where you need to identify a person rather than simply detect movement.
