Front door, driveway, back yard and both sides.
The most common house we wire has four approaches and one of them matters more than the rest: the driveway. That is where vehicles are, where packages land, and where you most need to read something small at night.
So this system is four general-purpose cameras plus one that is genuinely better in the dark, pointed where the detail matters.
Doors and sides take four. The fifth is the driveway camera, and it is a different camera on purpose.
A large-aperture lens and smart white light hold full colour in near-darkness. Vehicle colour and plate digits survive, where standard infrared turns everything to grey.
Five cameras today, three spare channels for a shed, a gate, or a side return later. Adding a camera should not mean replacing the recorder.
A typical three or four-bedroom house on a standard lot, with a driveway and a back yard.
A weekend
Five cable runs is the real work — usually an attic or crawlspace job. Mounting and aiming is quick. Most people do the cable on a Saturday and the rest on Sunday morning.