Advise on Film Testing for pt/pd (Finding EI and Dev. times)

Hello,
I plan on doing some testing over the weekend to find film speed and
development times for negatives that will be printed on pt/pd. I do not
have access to a densitometer; therefore, I'll evaluate the results
visually (Print/Step Wedge). What I have done in the past to determine
film speed for silver is to meter/photograph a grey card and under
expose it 4 stops (zone I). After I process the film, I make a print
with the minimum exposure that gives me max black (Optimum time?) on
the fb+fog portion of the film. I repeat this test (adjusting ISO)
until the zone I portion of the negative prints slightly lighter than
max black. My question is will this test work the same for pt/pd as it
does for silver? The test I use for finding the development times is
similar to above except I meter/photograph (with the ISO I picked from
the above test) the grey card and over expose 3 stops (zone VIII) then
pick the time that gives me a tone slightly darker than the paper-base
white. Since pt/pd is capable of a longer scale; do I use the same
value for the highlights +3 stops or do I place them higher? I
appreciate any advise/guidance you can give me...

FWIW : I plan to test FP4+ and HP5+ in PMK and perhaps XTOL or ID-11

Thanks and Happy New Year
Jon
Received on Thu Jan 1 11:24:51 2004