Why does my shop CCTV never show anyone’s face?

Almost always mounting height combined with lens choice. Cameras get put high because high is out of reach, but a camera looking steeply down at someone two or three metres away sees the top of a head and a hood rather than a face. The fix is to separate the jobs: overview cameras can stay high, and one identification camera goes near the entrance at roughly head height plus a little, angled back along the way people come in so everyone entering is captured properly.

How many cameras does a shop in Derby need?

Most independent units need three, because the count follows the number of distinct jobs rather than the floor area: an identification camera at the entrance, a till position, and a stock room or rear delivery door. Larger units with genuine shrinkage across the floor need more. Adding cameras beyond what you can realistically review adds footage rather than evidence.

How long should a shop keep CCTV footage?

Long enough that you would still have it when you find out, which is longer than most recorders are set to by default. Shoplifting and staff issues are often discovered at a stock count or an audit weeks after the event, and a system overwriting on a short default will have nothing left by then. We set retention deliberately at the design stage and size the drive for it.

Can I put a camera on staff areas?

A camera covering a till has an obvious and defensible purpose. A camera trained continuously on a break room or an area where staff work all day, without a specific justified reason, is very hard to defend and creates a problem more expensive than the shrinkage it was meant to address. Staff must be told recording is happening and why, and they can request footage of themselves. We raise this at the design stage rather than fitting whatever is asked for.

My unit is in a conservation area. Can I still fit CCTV?

Yes, but not by improvising on the day. Derby has fifteen conservation areas, including ones covering the city centre and Friar Gate, and a lot of retail property sits inside them. Surface conduit across a historic frontage is not an acceptable answer, and on a listed building consent may be needed for the fixings themselves. The route gets planned around existing voids and less sensitive elevations from the outset, which affects programme and price.

Is there a monthly fee?

No. Footage records to a recorder in your unit, so there is no cloud plan, no per-camera monthly charge and no third party setting your retention window. The hardware and the recordings are yours outright, which also means footage cannot be lost because a subscription lapsed.

Shop CCTV Installation in Derby

Retail CCTV across Derby. Most shop systems produce hours of footage and not one usable face, because the cameras were mounted where they would be safe rather than where they would work. Fixing that is mostly a question of height and lens, and it has to be decided before installation.

By the Doberman install team · CCTV system designers & installers, Leicester · Last reviewed August 2026

By the Doberman install team

CCTV system designers & installers, Leicester

Last reviewed August 2026

What you get

Site survey
We walk the shop floor and the back of house, and establish what each camera has to prove: identification at the door, activity at the till, access to stock.
System design
Camera positions, mounting heights and lens choice set against the real distances in your unit, which in most shops are short.
Installation around trading
Cable routed properly and the work scheduled around your opening hours where that matters.
Handover and documentation
A walkthrough of live view, playback and export so a manager can pull a clip without calling us, plus the signage and staff documentation you need.

How it works

Survey

We drive over from Leicester, about forty minutes up the A6, and measure the unit rather than estimating from a floor plan.

Design

A written proposal with camera positions, mounting heights, lens types, recorder specification, retention period and a fixed price.

Install

Fitting, cable routing, recorder setup, configuration and commissioning, with playback and export demonstrated before we leave.

The mounting height problem, which is most of the problem

The commonest fault we find in existing shop systems is not a cheap camera, it is a camera in the ceiling. Cameras get mounted high because high is out of reach, and out of reach is a reasonable instinct in a retail unit. The cost is that a camera looking steeply down at somebody standing two or three metres away sees the top of a head, a shoulder line and a hood. That is enough to establish that a person was present and almost never enough to identify them, which is the one thing you actually needed it for.

The fix is to separate the two jobs rather than compromise on both. Overview cameras can go high, because their job is to show movement, sequence and where people went, and a downward angle does that perfectly well. Identification cameras need to be low enough and angled along the approach rather than down onto it, so a face is captured more or less straight on at a workable distance. In practice that means an identification camera near the entrance at roughly head height plus a little, looking back along the way people come in, so everyone who enters is captured properly once.

This is worth pushing on with any installer, including us, because it is the difference between a system that supports a prosecution and one that produces a police report saying the footage was of insufficient quality. If a quote shows every camera in a ceiling corner, ask which one is expected to give you a face and at what distance.

The three positions a shop actually needs

Most independent retail units in Derby need three cameras rather than a dozen, and the count follows the number of distinct jobs rather than the floor area. The entrance is the first: one identification camera, positioned as above, that captures everyone entering. This is the camera that does the work when something happens, because whatever occurred later in the shop, the person came through that door.

The till position is the second, and its job is different again. It covers transactions, disputes over change and refunds, and it needs to see both the customer side and what the operator does, which is a positioning question rather than an equipment one. Till cameras also do quiet work in resolving accusations in both directions, and it is worth being clear with staff that this is why it exists.

The third covers stock, the back of house and any rear or delivery door. In a lot of retail businesses the rear door is where the real exposure is, and it is the position most likely to have been left out of an existing system. Where a unit has a stock room that staff and deliveries both use, that is worth covering for the same reason a warehouse is.

Beyond those three you are adding cameras to cover aisles, which is worth doing in a larger unit with genuine shrinkage and is often not worth doing in a small one. More cameras mean more footage to review, and a shop that cannot review what it already has does not benefit from more of it.

Retention, export, and the footage actually being there

Two practical failures account for most of the times a retail system disappoints its owner, and neither is about image quality. The first is retention. A recorder left on a short default overwrites in days, and shoplifting and staff issues are frequently discovered on a stock count or an audit weeks later. By then the recording is gone. Retention is a decision to make deliberately at the design stage, against how you would realistically discover a problem, and then to size the drive for.

The second is export. When something does happen, somebody has to get the clip out and hand it to the police or an insurer in a form they can play. If that process requires calling the installer, it will not happen quickly and sometimes it will not happen at all. We demonstrate export at handover and leave it documented, because a system nobody can get footage out of is not doing its job.

The third thing worth checking periodically is that the system is recording at all. A recorder whose drive has failed still shows perfectly normal live pictures, so the fault is invisible until the day you go looking for something. Checking playback occasionally costs nothing and is the single most useful habit a shop owner can have.

Staff, customers and what you have to tell them

Recording in a shop sits well outside the domestic exemption in data protection law, and the obligations are straightforward to meet but not optional. You need a clear purpose and to record no more than that purpose requires. People need to know it is happening, which means signage visible at the entrance rather than a small sticker by the till. You need a retention period you can justify. And anyone captured, including a member of staff, can ask for footage of themselves, so you need to be able to find and export it.

The area that causes most difficulty is staff monitoring. A camera covering a till has an obvious and defensible purpose. A camera trained continuously on a staff area, a break room or a place where employees work all day without a specific reason is very hard to justify, and getting that wrong creates a problem considerably more expensive than the shrinkage it was meant to address. We will raise it at the design stage rather than fitting whatever is asked for and leaving you with the consequences.

We supply signage and written documentation with the install. We are installers rather than solicitors, so where a particular arrangement is contentious, take advice on that specific point rather than relying on a page like this one.

City centre units and suburban parades

A good deal of Derby’s retail property sits inside a conservation area, and the city has fifteen of them, including ones covering the city centre and Friar Gate. That does not prevent a camera but it does rule out the easy options on a frontage: surface conduit across a historic elevation is not an acceptable answer, and on a listed building consent may be needed for the fixings themselves. The route has to be planned around existing voids and less sensitive elevations from the outset, which is a programme and cost difference worth having in a quote rather than discovering on the day.

Suburban parades are a more straightforward proposition on the building and a slightly different one on the risk. A shop in a parade in Chaddesden, Alvaston or Mickleover typically has customer parking directly outside, a shared service area behind, and neighbouring units either side, so the exterior positions matter as much as the interior ones. Where a unit has its own frontage onto a car park, a camera covering that approach earns its place: it captures arrival and departure, which is the part of an incident that identifies people and vehicles.

Pricing

Shop systems are priced per site because the camera count follows the number of distinct jobs rather than floor area. Most independent units need three cameras: an identification camera at the entrance, a till position and a stock or rear-door position. Conservation-area and listed frontages take longer because the route has to be planned around the building. Fixed price after the survey, including signage and documentation.

Why Doberman

One camera that actually gets a face
Ceiling-mounted cameras give the tops of heads. We position an identification camera at the entrance to capture everyone who comes in, properly, once.
Retention set against how you find out
Shrinkage surfaces at a stock count weeks later. A recorder overwriting on a short default will have nothing left, so retention is designed rather than defaulted.
Export demonstrated at handover
A manager can pull a clip and hand it over without calling us. A system nobody can get footage out of is not doing its job.
Staff monitoring raised before it is fitted
A till camera has an obvious purpose. A camera on a break room does not, and we will say so at the design stage rather than leaving you with the problem.

About Doberman

Doberman is a Leicester-based CCTV installation company fitting hardwired PoE systems for commercial premises and homes. We cover Derby as part of a service area built around drive time rather than county boundaries, about thirty miles and forty minutes up the A6.

We have no Derby office and will not imply one, and we do not hold NSI or SSAIB accreditation. For commercial work that is worth stating rather than burying: if your insurer or a tender requires an accredited installer, use one, and ask us and everyone else for the certification rather than assuming it. What we offer instead is our own team on every job, equipment you own outright, no ongoing contract, and a fixed price after the survey.

For the wider commercial picture see business CCTV installation in Derby, for the city overview our Derby CCTV installation page, and areas we cover for the rest of our patch.

Areas we cover

We install shop CCTV across Derby, including the city centre, Friar Gate, and the suburban parades in Chaddesden, Alvaston, Mickleover, Littleover, Spondon, Allestree and Chellaston. If your unit is somewhere we have not named, ask.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my shop CCTV never show anyone’s face?: Almost always mounting height combined with lens choice. Cameras get put high because high is out of reach, but a camera looking steeply down at someone two or three metres away sees the top of a head and a hood rather than a face. The fix is to separate the jobs: overview cameras can stay high, and one identification camera goes near the entrance at roughly head height plus a little, angled back along the way people come in so everyone entering is captured properly.
How many cameras does a shop in Derby need?: Most independent units need three, because the count follows the number of distinct jobs rather than the floor area: an identification camera at the entrance, a till position, and a stock room or rear delivery door. Larger units with genuine shrinkage across the floor need more. Adding cameras beyond what you can realistically review adds footage rather than evidence.
How long should a shop keep CCTV footage?: Long enough that you would still have it when you find out, which is longer than most recorders are set to by default. Shoplifting and staff issues are often discovered at a stock count or an audit weeks after the event, and a system overwriting on a short default will have nothing left by then. We set retention deliberately at the design stage and size the drive for it.
Can I put a camera on staff areas?: A camera covering a till has an obvious and defensible purpose. A camera trained continuously on a break room or an area where staff work all day, without a specific justified reason, is very hard to defend and creates a problem more expensive than the shrinkage it was meant to address. Staff must be told recording is happening and why, and they can request footage of themselves. We raise this at the design stage rather than fitting whatever is asked for.
My unit is in a conservation area. Can I still fit CCTV?: Yes, but not by improvising on the day. Derby has fifteen conservation areas, including ones covering the city centre and Friar Gate, and a lot of retail property sits inside them. Surface conduit across a historic frontage is not an acceptable answer, and on a listed building consent may be needed for the fixings themselves. The route gets planned around existing voids and less sensitive elevations from the outset, which affects programme and price.
Is there a monthly fee?: No. Footage records to a recorder in your unit, so there is no cloud plan, no per-camera monthly charge and no third party setting your retention window. The hardware and the recordings are yours outright, which also means footage cannot be lost because a subscription lapsed.

Ready to get started?

We visit, map the blind spots, and quote one fixed price on the spot.