Placement decides whether footage is evidence or wallpaper. The same camera, on the same building, in two positions ten feet apart, can produce a usable identification or an unidentifiable shape. These are the positions that consistently earn their place.
The main entrance, at face height
Angled so people walk toward the lens rather than past it, and mounted low enough to catch a face rather than the top of a head. A camera at ten feet looking steeply down produces excellent footage of hats and shoulders.
The instinct is to mount high, out of reach. The compromise is to mount at a height where the face is still in frame, and to protect the camera by position rather than by altitude.
The back-of-house door
The service entrance nobody watches is where most losses walk in and out. It is also the position most often missing from a quote, because it is not the door the owner uses.
Dock doors and the yard
Both halves of the transaction: the vehicle, and what moved between the vehicle and the building. Retention matters more here than anywhere else on the site, because delivery disputes surface weeks after the event rather than the same day.
The cash register, the safe, the stock room
Tight coverage on the specific thing rather than a wide view of the room containing it. A camera covering a whole stock room shows that someone was in it. A camera covering the shelf shows what they took.
The approach to the building
One camera showing direction of travel to and from the property. This is the position most often missing and most often decisive, because it connects an incident inside the building to a vehicle or a direction outside it.
Camera positions that reliably disappoint
The single wide parking lot camera. Covers everything, resolves nothing. Parking lots need coverage of entrances and specific rows rather than a panorama.
The camera facing a west-facing door. Perfect all morning, staring into the sun every afternoon. Orientation should be checked against the time of day the position actually matters.
The camera directly under a porch light. It exposes for the light and silhouettes the person. Lighting and camera placement have to be decided together.
The camera behind glass. Interior camera looking out through a window produces reflections at night and its own infrared bounced straight back. If the job is outside, the camera belongs outside.
Camera mounting height, briefly
High enough to be out of casual reach, low enough that faces stay in frame. Where those two conflict, the usual resolution is a lower camera in a protected position rather than a higher camera with a worse angle.
The test for every camera position
Ask what specific question this camera answers. If the answer is “it covers that area”, the position has not been designed yet. If the answer is “it identifies anyone entering through the side door”, it has.
Placement is the whole design, and it cannot be done from a floor plan. Elite Security does it standing in the building. The blog has more, and commercial CCTV is where to start when you want it scoped.