Bullet, turret, dome or fisheye: which CCTV camera shape actually belongs where

By Namra Shah · Cabling For U · Auckland · Updated September 2026

Almost every Auckland CCTV quote lists cameras by model number, which tells a homeowner nothing. The more useful question is the shape of the thing going on your wall, because shape decides where a camera can go, how far it sees in the dark, how often someone has to clean it, and how quickly a burglar works out it is pointed at the wrong place.

Short answer: bullets for long driveways and boundaries, turrets for almost everything else on a house, domes where the camera needs to be tamper-resistant or unobtrusive, and fisheye or panoramic where you want one camera to cover a whole open space. Most Auckland homes we wire end up mostly turrets, with a bullet or two on the long approaches.

The four shapes, and what each is actually for

Bullet cameras

The cylindrical ones on an arm. A bullet is obviously a camera, which is the point: it is the shape that makes someone think twice from the footpath. The long body also houses bigger infrared and white-light arrays, so bullets generally reach further after dark than a compact housing can.

They are easy to aim, and easy to re-aim later when you extend the deck or plant a hedge in the way. The trade-offs are real, though. The arm and the integrated sun shade collect spiderwebs, and a web across the lens in front of an IR array produces a white blur that ruins the shot. On a low wall, the arm is also the easiest thing on the whole system to grab and twist.

Turret cameras (also called eyeball)

A ball sitting in a socket mount. Turrets are what we fit most, and it is worth knowing why. The lens and the IR sit on the same moving ball with no glass cover over the top, so there is no dome bubble for infrared to bounce off. That single fact removes the most common cause of poor night footage we get called out to look at.

They are shorter than a bullet, so they collect noticeably fewer webs, and they sit tighter to a soffit so they are harder to reach and twist. You aim them by moving the ball, which is quick on install day and quick again in two years when something changes.

Dome cameras

A half-sphere under a clear cover. Domes are the discreet option, and the vandal-resistant models are the ones you want above a bar, in a stairwell, or anywhere the public can reach. The cover protects the lens and makes it hard to see which way the camera is looking.

The same cover is the weakness. Infrared bouncing off the inside of a dirty or scratched dome is what produces that washed-out grey night image, and a dome above a kitchen or a workshop picks up a film of grease or dust far faster than an open turret. If you fit domes, someone has to actually clean them.

Fisheye and panoramic cameras

These trade distance for coverage. A 360-degree fisheye sits on a ceiling and sees an entire open room from one point on one cable. A 180-degree panoramic uses two sensors side by side to cover a wide frontage in a single housing.

The catch is pixel density. A fisheye spreads its resolution across an enormous field, so it is excellent at telling you what happened and where a person went, and poor at telling you who they were from the far corner. Use them to cover a space, and pair them with a turret at the door where you need a face.

The mistake we get called out to fix

The single most common problem is a dome tucked hard under a soffit with its infrared on. The IR lights up the underside of the eave, the dome cover catches the glare, and the camera spends every night filming a bright grey fog. The footage looks fine at 2pm and is useless at 2am, which is exactly the wrong way round.

The fix is usually not a better camera. It is a turret instead of a dome, or moving the housing 200 millimetres clear of the surface it is bouncing off. Shape and placement beat specification more often than anyone selling cameras will tell you.

Not sure which of these applies to your place? That is what our CCTV installation Auckland service is for. We walk the property, plan the camera positions with you, and email a fixed price within 24 hours — no charge, no obligation. Book a free site walk.

What we actually fit on an Auckland home

A typical house ends up with turrets at the front door, the back door and the side access, because those are identification shots at short range where the ball-in-socket housing is easiest to aim at a face. If there is a long driveway or a wide street frontage, that gets a bullet, because the extra reach after dark is worth the spiderweb maintenance.

Domes come in when there is a garage or a sleepout where the camera is within arm’s reach, or where the owner does not want the house to look like a depot.

What changes on a commercial site

Retail and hospitality lean on domes and fisheyes, because staff and customers are inside the covered area and the camera needs to be both tamper-resistant and unremarkable. A single ceiling fisheye over a shop floor does work that four wall cameras would otherwise do, on one cable and one recorder channel.

Yards, car parks and loading bays go the other way: bullets on the boundary for reach and visible deterrence, with a turret or two at the gate and the office door for faces.

The Auckland detail nobody mentions: salt

West-facing coastal properties from Piha round to the North Shore bays chew through hardware. Salt air pits screws, corrodes bracket plates and eventually gets into the housing seal. If you are within a few hundred metres of open water, the housing rating and the mounting hardware matter more than the sensor inside, and it is worth asking specifically about corrosion-resistant models rather than assuming weatherproof covers it. Weatherproof means rain. It does not mean salt.

Three questions worth asking your installer

Why this shape here? If the answer is “that is what we always fit”, the camera was chosen by the van stock, not by your property.
Where is the infrared going to bounce? A good installer will already have walked the eaves and the fence line thinking about this.
Who cleans them, and how do they reach? A camera you cannot safely reach with a ladder is a camera that stays dirty.

Get the shapes right before you pick models

We walk the property, work out what each position actually needs to see, and email you a fixed price within 24 hours. Every install is Fluke-tested, configured with your own passwords rather than factory defaults, and carries our 12-month workmanship warranty.

Book a free site walk or call 0800 222 546.

The models we fit

Shape is mostly about where the camera goes and how its infrared behaves. These are the housings we fit across the four shapes.

Model	What it is	Resolution	Where we fit it
DS-2CD2T67G3-LIS2UY/SL-4MM	Bullet — ColorVu 3.0 smart hybrid light	4MP	Eaves and walls, pointed along a line — our most-fitted unit
DS-2CD3686G2HT-LIZSUY	Bullet — DeepinLight, motorised zoom	8MP (4K)	Longer views where the lens needs tuning
DS-2CD2955G0-ISU	Fisheye dome — indoor	5MP	Ceilings, one camera covering a whole room
DS-2CD63C5G0E-S/RC	Fisheye — in-ceiling flush mount	12MP	Finished ceilings where a surface dome would look wrong
DS-2XE6146F-HS(C)	Dome — corrosion and hazardous rated	4MP	Harsh or exposed positions

Infrared bounce is the real reason shape matters. A dome behind glass or under a tight soffit reflects its own IR back into the lens and washes the picture out. A bullet or turret in the same spot does not.

Full list on our Hikvision camera range page.

Frequently asked

Is a dome camera more secure than a bullet?

Physically, usually yes. A vandal-resistant dome has no arm to grab and a cover over the lens, so it is harder to twist away or damage. That matters where the public can reach it. On a second-storey soffit on a house, it makes very little difference and the night-vision trade-off is the bigger consideration.

Which shape sees furthest at night?

Bullets, generally. The longer housing fits larger infrared and white-light arrays, and the cameras with the longest reach in the range are bullet-shaped for exactly that reason. If you have a 40-metre driveway, that is the shape to ask about.

Can one fisheye replace four cameras?

For coverage of an open space, often yes. For identifying a face at the far side of that space, no. The honest answer is that a fisheye replaces four cameras for knowing what happened, and none of them for knowing who did it.

Do camera shapes affect how much cabling I need?

Not directly, but coverage does. One fisheye on a ceiling is one cable run; four wall cameras covering the same room is four. That is usually where the saving on a fisheye actually comes from.

Can I mix shapes on one system?

Yes, and you generally should. A system that is all one shape was specified by habit. Cameras from the same range share a recorder, an app and a configuration regardless of housing.

Are turret cameras better than dome cameras?

For outdoor use, usually yes. A turret has no glass dome in front of the lens, so its infrared cannot bounce off the cover and wash the picture out. A dome earns its place indoors, and where the camera is within reach and needs to resist tampering.

What are the downsides of bullet cameras?

They are obvious, which is good for deterrence and bad if you wanted discretion. The housing also collects spider webs and dust, and webs in front of the infrared will trigger alerts all night. They need cleaning more often than a turret.

Who wrote this

Namra Shah installs CCTV and structured cabling across Auckland through Cabling For U. PSPLA Company Licence 25-132031 (Security Technician), SiteSafe Passport holder, Impac pre-qualified, $5M public liability. Cabling For U is a trading name of HARIKRUPA LIMITED, NZBN 9429046975126, incorporated 22 August 2018. Every install carries a 12-month workmanship warranty and Fluke-tested cabling.

The models named on this page are ones we hold accounts for and fit on Auckland jobs. If you want one specced for your property, ask for a free site walk.