Front Porch Camera ideas - MP, Placement, style, etc

[ck42]

First outdoor camera for me. Starting with covering the front porch area.
Couple of questions I'm hoping I can get some specific response for. I've been searching for a couple of hours, but the responses are ALL OVER THE PLACE and I'm having a hard time being able to form any real conclusions. :single_eye:

1) Is there a particular style camera I should be looking at? e.g., turret, mini-dome, bullet?
2) If this camera's purpose is just to cover the front door/porch area, is 4MP overkill?
3) Placement: I know this is more difficult w/o seeing a picture of the front of the house, but suffice it to say that it's a covered porch - with 95% of the covered portion being to the left of the door (as you stand in front of the door). I want to see faces. Do people usually place cameras above the door? To the side of the door? to the covered porch ceiling off to the side?
4) If only covering front porch area, would a 4mm lens be more appropriate than a 2.8? Possibly 6mm?

I've started inside with Hikvision camera (one so far) and am using BI.

 

[blake]

1) Turret cam
2) 4MP will do just fine. If you have good lighting 2MP will work also.
3) Try to keep camera no higher than 8ft for better recognition and pick which side people normally face when at your door.
4) I always do 2.8mm at front door. Just my preference for field of view. That way I insure I see entire front door / porch area.

 

[pozzello]

What blake said. Domes may be more discreet, but are a little more finicky to install, imo,
and don't have as good night-vision as the turrets, which may or may not be an issue depending on your lighting.
As for resolution, the older 3mp units can work fine for door cam (cheaper...)
Also, consider maybe another cam on the far end of the porch, capturing more of an overview
of the whole porch area and the approach from the street/yard from a different angle...

 

[ck42]

Appreciate the quick feedback on this!
Here's an image of what the porch layout looks like. Hopefully this will help.
Based on what seems like a narrow FOV, I'd want a 4mm or 6mm. I don't necessarily need 90 degrees in this case, but that seems to be the most common recommendation for front door areas.
The area marked in blue is where the covered area exist.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9871172/FrontPorch.jpg

 

[pozzello]

you can always turn the camera 90 degrees to get a 'taller' view, if you like.

for example:
this is a 3MP hik turret w/ 2.8MM lens, mounted just above the left of our two front doors.

 

[ck42]

Now that's an interesting idea....