Best Locations to Mount Security Cameras in a Commercial Building
Where each camera goes in a real building, what it should see from there, and the four placement mistakes that leave you with footage of nothing. Test any spot on a scale plan.
Technical figures checked against the standards and sources listed at the end.
The best locations to mount security cameras in a commercial building are the places everyone must pass and the places where things of value sit: every exterior door, the lobby, reception and cash counters, corridors and stair doors, the loading dock, the parking lot and its entrance, and the IT closet. Face cameras go low, about 8 ft up and within about 20 ft of the door for a typical 4MP camera; overview cameras go high in corners, with bright glass behind them rather than in front of them.
Those locations only work if each camera has one job and a spot that lets it do that job. Below, one example building carries the whole guide: a ground floor with a glass storefront lobby, a reception counter, a corridor to a rear door, a loading dock, an IT closet, an alley and a parking lot. Figure 1 places nine cameras in it and then moves four of them into four of the most common placement mistakes.
Swipe the plan sideways to see the alley and the parking lot.
Who came in, and where did they go?
- WaitingThe event is starting.
- Face at the doorPlaying
- Path through the lobbyPlaying
- Face at the counterPlaying
Identify everyone who walks in
At 16 ft the camera is 10.5 ft above a face. At the door, 17 ft away, it looks down at about 32 degrees, and steeper as people come closer: hair, cap brims and shoulders. The red hatch marks where the angle is steeper than 30 degrees.
Fix Bring the face camera down to about 8 ft: about 8 degrees at the door. Let the overview camera have the high mount.
This camera is placed the same way in both views.
Face at a shallow angle against the bright storefront: a camera with true WDR holds both.
01Security camera placement starts with each camera's job
A camera location is an answer to a question someone will ask later: who came in, who took the carton, who was at the back door at 11 at night. Write that question for each spot, with the distance it covers, before choosing a camera or a bracket. A camera that was never given a job usually answers none of them.
The job also sets the detail the camera needs. IEC 62676-4, the international application guideline for video surveillance, defines four levels by pixels on the target: identify a person at 250 pixels per meter, recognize someone you know at 125, observe what a person is doing at 62, and detect that someone is there at 25. A camera's pixels are spread across the width of its view, so the wider the lens, the shorter each of those distances. Our guide to how far a security camera can see calculates them for any resolution and lens; the short version for a typical 4MP camera is below.
| Lens | Typical angle | Identify | Recognize | Observe | View width at identify |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.8 mm | about 100° | 14 | 28 | 57 | 34 |
| 4 mm | about 80° | 20 | 40 | 81 | 34 |
| 6 mm | about 50° | 36 | 72 | 145 | 34 |
| 8 mm | about 40° | 46 | 92 | 186 | 34 |
| 12 mm | about 26° | 73 | 146 | 293 | 34 |
So the job decides the spot as much as the camera does. A face camera has to be close to where faces will be. An overview camera can be far away, as long as nothing stands between it and the space. This is also the approach of the UK Home Office's guidance for small businesses, which asks for at least one camera that captures an identifiable image of everyone entering, and shows the same failures this guide draws: subject backlit, camera set too high, view obscured, view too wide.
02Entrances and exits: where to mount a camera to capture faces
Every door that opens to the outside gets a camera: the main entrance, the service or rear door, the loading dock, emergency exits, the roof door and any side door a tenant or vendor uses. Doors are the one place everyone must pass, so they are where a face camera earns its place. Pair each exterior door with a door contact on the access system, as our guide to how access control works explains, and the door event points straight to the clip.
Mount the face camera low and close
A face camera works when it looks at faces nearly level. Camera makers' installation guidance puts the downward angle to a face at about 15 to 20 degrees, and no steeper than about 30. With the face at about 5.5 ft, that is simple geometry. Camera 1 in Figure 1 sits on the lobby column 8 ft up, 17 ft from the door: 2.5 ft above the face, an angle of about 8 degrees. Move it to the top of a 16 ft lobby ceiling and it is 10.5 ft above the face, about 32 degrees at the door and steeper as people walk in. It records hair, cap brims and shoulders. Figure 4 of our camera distance guide draws this for any height, and our guide to mounting height and the angle to the face explains the numbers.
Distance matters as much. The same 4MP camera with a 4 mm lens identifies only to about 20 ft, measured along the line of sight, so the 16 ft mount uses up all of it: 17 ft across the floor and 10.5 ft down makes 20 ft. Low and close is the rule for faces, and the reason one face camera per door beats one high camera trying to cover two doors.
A glass door is always bright
A camera aimed at a glass entrance looks into the brightest thing in the building. By day the street can be many times brighter than the lobby, and an ordinary camera exposes for one or the other. Spend on true wide dynamic range (WDR) at this camera above all others, keep the frame on the doorway and the floor rather than the whole storefront, and add a second face point where the background is a wall. In our example that is the reception counter, which is why camera 2 still identifies the visitor even in the mistakes view.
Rear doors, emergency exits and the roof door
Watch secondary doors from the side, not from above. Camera 5 sits on the rear wall about 20 ft from the door and looks back along the wall, so the door, the person at it and the dock door beyond are all in one frame. Mounted directly over the door, the same camera would look out across the alley and miss whoever was trying the handle. Inside, camera 4 looks down the corridor from the lobby end, so anyone coming in the back walks toward it with the door behind them. At the roof door, put the camera inside the stair bulkhead, aimed at the door.
03Lobby, reception and cash points
The lobby camera answers where people went after they came in. Put it high in a corner beside the storefront, with the glass behind it, aimed in across the room toward the elevator and the corridor. From that corner in our example, a 2.8 mm lens sees 93% of the lobby floor at observe detail or better. The column hides a small wedge, which camera 1 on the column covers.
Reception desks and payment counters get a camera that looks across the counter at the visitor, mounted on the wall behind the staff side so the background behind the visitor is a wall. At about 12 ft, a 2.8 mm lens is enough to identify. Aim it so screens and paperwork on the staff side stay out of the frame. Where cash changes hands, a second camera looks down on the counter itself to show hands, the drawer and what was handed over; our retail store security guide explains why that angle exists and how it differs from a face camera.
Elevator lobbies on upper floors follow the same rule as the ground floor: one camera in the corner across from the elevator doors, covering the doors and the start of each corridor, so every arrival on the floor is on record.
04Test a camera location before you drill
A plan drawn to scale answers most placement questions before anyone climbs a ladder. Figure 2 is the example lobby at 18 pixels to the foot. Drag the camera, turn it and change the lens: it casts the camera's view against the walls and the column and reports what share of the floor it sees, what share of the view is bright glass, and whether each place that matters is in view with enough pixels.
Drag the camera with a finger, or tap anywhere in the lobby to move it there.
Identify to 14 ft, recognize to 28 ft, observe to 57 ft
- Main doorNeeds identify, faces as people come inRecognize, 54 px/ft20 ft
- Visitor at the counterNeeds identify, faces at the counterObserve, 33 px/ft33 ft
- Elevator doorNeeds recognize, who gets inObserve, 31 px/ft34 ft
- Corridor openingNeeds recognize, who heads to the backObserve, 24 px/ft44 ft
- The column hides about 44 sq ft of floor from here.
Try the five spots and the pattern is plain. The corner by the glass sees 93% of the floor with 9% glass in its view. The back wall facing the glass sees 49% and its view is 74% glass. On the column, aimed at the door, the view is 88% glass: right for a face camera with WDR, wrong for an overview. Over the door, the door itself is under the camera. Behind the counter, the visitor at the desk is identified against the far wall.
05Corridors, stairs, elevators and closets
Corridors are covered from the ends, looking along their length, never from the middle. A camera at one end sees everyone walking toward it; the people walking away are seen by the camera at the other end or by the next room's camera. In the example, the 40 ft corridor from the lobby to the rear door is one camera with an 8 mm lens, about 40 degrees, which identifies to about 46 ft at 4MP and so reaches the rear door with room to spare. Along the way it sees the stair, restroom, IT and mechanical room doors.
Stairs are where people move through a building unseen. Cover each stair door at the ground floor, the cellar and the roof, and the doors at sensitive floors. Intermediate landings are optional; stair lighting is often uneven, so check the light before choosing the camera, and a face camera needs the same pixels in a stair as anywhere else.
The IT closet and the mechanical room each get one camera inside, facing the door, so anyone who opens it is recorded coming in. A wide 2.8 mm lens identifies to about 14 ft, plenty for a small room, and can see the rack as well. Pair the closet door with a reader and the access log names who opened it while the camera shows what they did; our guide to securing multiple entry points in a commercial building covers the door side.
06Loading docks, parking lots and the perimeter
Loading docks
A dock needs two views: one inside over the staging floor and the dock door, and one outside on the apron where trucks back in. Inside, pick the corner from which the line to the dock door clears every column and rack. In Figure 1, the far corner sees the whole door; the near corner puts the column in the way and loses half of the 12 ft opening. Outside, camera 5 covers the dock from the rear wall at about 48 ft, close enough to recognize the person loading a van with a 6 mm lens.
Parking lots and the lot entrance
An overview high on the building corner, 14 ft or more, covers the lot: cars, people and where they walk. In the example it reaches about 80 ft to the far rows at observe detail with a 4 mm lens. It will not read a plate. A plate needs its own camera at the lane where cars slow, with a narrow lens and a shallow angle: the 2025 edition of IEC 62676-4 puts retrieving license plates at 500 pixels per meter, which at 4MP means a 12 mm lens, about 26 degrees, for a lane 24 ft away. Plan lighting for it at night.
The perimeter
Full perimeter coverage is rarely possible on a dense street, so cover the approaches someone could use unseen: side alleys, recessed doorways, dumpster areas, mechanical yards and the bottom of fire escapes. In New York City, check each exterior view against what may block it later as well as on the day of the walk: scaffolding and sidewalk sheds, street trees in leaf, parked trucks and new signs. Exterior cameras need housings rated for the weather, which our article on indoor vs outdoor cameras explains, and infrared that does not bounce off a nearby wall or eave, covered in our guide to night vision cameras. In a landmarked building or historic district, exterior work may still need Landmarks Preservation Commission approval.
07Five camera placement mistakes that cost footage
- Too high for faces. A face camera on a high ceiling records the tops of heads. Keep face cameras near 8 ft and let the overviews go high.
- Bright glass behind the subject. Aimed at a storefront or a window wall, the camera exposes for the daylight and everyone inside becomes a silhouette. Put the glass behind the camera, and where a face camera must look at a glass door, use true WDR and add a face point against a wall.
- Behind an obstruction. Columns, racking, stacked stock, hanging signs, open doors held on magnets, and in summer, trees. Check the line from the lens to each target on the plan and again on the walk.
- A blind spot under the camera. A camera sees out and down, so the area directly below and behind it is not covered. Do not mount a camera over the door it is meant to watch; mount it across the room or along the wall, looking back at the door.
- A view too wide for its job. One wide camera covering a whole lot or a long corridor shows that something happened, not who did it. Split the job: an overview for movement, a close camera for faces or plates.
Two smaller ones are worth checking on every walk-through. Cameras within reach of the floor get turned or covered, so overviews and exterior cameras go out of easy reach, and face cameras low enough to be touched use vandal-resistant housings. And a camera installed at the edge of its distance has no margin: aim each one so its target sits well inside its range, not at the limit.
08Where not to point security cameras
Some places are never covered. In New York, Labor Law section 203-c bars an employer from video recording employees in a restroom, locker room or room designated for changing clothes without a court order, and General Business Law section 395-b restricts devices that view or record inside fitting rooms and restrooms. That is why the example's restrooms are hatched with no cameras and the corridor camera sees only their door.
Keep cameras off screens, keypads and paperwork wherever the work is confidential, as in medical, legal and financial offices; aim at the doors and counters, not the desks. Leave microphones off unless you have settled the legal question first: recording a conversation is treated differently from recording video, and our guide to NYC building security rules for cameras and audio sets out where the lines are. In a multi-tenant building, agree in writing which cameras the building runs and which each tenant runs inside its own suite. This is general information, not legal advice.
09Cable paths, power and the mount itself
A camera location is only final when the cable can reach it. In a pre-war building with concrete slabs and few chases, a spot 3 ft over may save a core through the slab; in a drop ceiling it may not matter at all. Walk the route from each spot to the closet that will hold the switch and the recorder during the site visit, and decide where the run is surface-mounted in raceway and where it is concealed. Our structured cabling work plans those routes, and our guide to PoE security camera installation covers the 100 m limit and the power each camera draws from the switch.
Most network cameras take power and data on one cable from a PoE switch, so a camera location rarely needs an outlet; heaters on outdoor housings and long-range infrared add to the draw. Where a device does need line power, it is coordinated with the electrician. Every penetration we make through a fire-rated wall or floor is fire-stopped. Mount cameras on something solid, a column, a header or a wall plate, so the view does not drift, and keep the lens clear of light fixtures that will shine into it at night.
10A camera placement checklist for each spot
Figure 3 turns the plan into the sheet we would carry on the walk. Add the spots your building has; each card gives the camera's job and distance, the lens that reaches it at the resolution you pick, the mounting height, and the checks to make before the bracket goes up. The lens shown is the widest standard lens that still reaches the job's distance, because a wider view covers more of the space.
Add a spot to start the sheet.
Bring these questions to any camera proposal, including ours.
- What is each camera's job, at what distance, and what detail does it reach there?
- Which cameras are meant to identify faces, and how high will each be mounted?
- Where is bright glass in each view, and which cameras have true WDR?
- What is in each line of sight now, and what could be there later?
- Which camera covers the area under and behind each of the others?
- How is each spot lit at night?
- What route does each cable take, and where is it exposed?
- Which areas are deliberately left uncovered, and why?
Our guides to how many cameras a business needs and commercial camera systems for NYC office buildings build these spots into a full system. Our commercial security camera installation starts from the same list of jobs, and our security camera page covers every kind of property we work in. Doors that need a reader as well as a camera are covered by our access control work.
11Frequently asked questions
Where is the best place to install security cameras in a commercial building?
At every exterior door, aimed from inside at face height; in a lobby corner with the glass behind the camera; at reception and cash counters; at the ends of corridors and at stair, elevator and IT closet doors; and over the loading dock, the parking lot and its entrance. A smart building does not change those spots. It changes what the cameras connect to.
How high should security cameras be mounted in a commercial building?
Face cameras go about 8 ft up, so the angle down to a face stays shallow: about 8 degrees at 17 ft. Overview cameras go higher, often 10 to 14 ft, where they see over people and stay out of reach. From a 16 ft ceiling the angle to a face 17 ft away is about 32 degrees, which records the top of the head.
Should a security camera face the door or away from it?
A face camera faces the door from inside, so people walk toward it as they come in. Do not mount it over the door looking into the room: it then sees only backs, and the doorway itself is beneath it. At a glass door, use a camera with true wide dynamic range, and add a second face camera where the background is a wall, such as the reception counter.
How do you avoid blind spots with security cameras?
Draw each camera's view on a scale plan and check what blocks it: walls, columns, racks and signs. Make sure another camera covers the area under and behind each camera, and cover long corridors from the ends. Then walk the building and look for what the plan does not show, such as doors held open, new signs or scaffolding.
Where are security cameras not allowed in a commercial building?
Never in restrooms, locker rooms or changing rooms. In New York, Labor Law section 203-c bars an employer from video recording employees in those rooms without a court order, and General Business Law section 395-b covers fitting rooms and restrooms. Recording audio raises separate legal questions. This is general information, not legal advice.
Can a security camera see through a window?
By day it can see through clear glass, with some glare and reflection. At night its infrared light reflects off the glass and washes out the image. For a view outside, mount an outdoor-rated camera outside, or turn the camera's infrared off and light the scene from outside.
Sources and standards
- IEC 62676-4:2014Video surveillance systems for use in security applications, Part 4: Application guidelines. The four levels and their densities: Detect 25 px/m, Observe 62, Recognize 125, Identify 250.
- IEC 62676-4:2025Second edition of the same guideline; the 500 px/m level used here for retrieving license plates, as summarized in our camera distance guide.
- Home Office, CCTV: supporting small businesses (CAST 37/10)UK guidance asking for an identifiable image of everyone entering, and showing the failures of a backlit subject, a camera set too high, an obscured view and a view too wide.
- Camera makers' installation guidesFace capture guidance: a downward angle to the face of about 15 to 20 degrees, and no more than about 30. Typical horizontal fields of view by focal length.
- New York Labor Law section 203-c; General Business Law section 395-bLimits on video recording in restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms and fitting rooms. General information, not legal advice.
- GeometryReach = horizontal pixels ÷ (2 × tan(field of view ÷ 2) × density). Angle to a face = arctan((mount height minus 5.5 ft) ÷ distance). Fields of view in Figures 1 and 2 are ray cast against the plan's walls and columns.
Want every camera placed from its job?
Send us the address and what you need each camera to see. We walk the site, then send a written plan with every camera, its lens and what it will cover. Same-day quotes when we can. Licensed and insured.