I realise that this is an older thread, but I just did a tiny portion of what the OP is dreaming of.
I wanted to find my own EI for a couple of films that I was considering for my current travels i Spain & Portugal. I am not especially concerned with grain, but want negatives that are not too dense.
My conclusion:
I selected FP4+ that I am exposing at EI 64 using a Mamiya 6 with s 50mm lens and a yellow filter. So far I am using mostly Sunny 16, but once in a while I use Mylightmeter on my iPhone. I will develop in Thornton 2 bath when I get home. I keep an empty box of Delta 3200 with the film for the possibility of having to argue for hand inspection if airport security wants to send my film through the armadillo film fryer. Copenhagen airport staff is nice and understanding.
My reflections (in the evening after taking as much as 8-10 pictures during the day):
1. I made many silly mistakes and spent a lot of time on maybe not learning so much new that I didn’t already know. Having retired recently, I developed some 60+ films of various types of film in mostly Thornton developer. These look mostly good, although the Rollei Superpan 200 look thin. I haven’t had time to print but a few. So I am ok with that developer. I also did some erratic stand development with Rodinal and DD-X. I started a thread here and found/learned very valuable things from members here. Thank you for that.
2. I have watched the ‘Naked Photographer’s testing and found this very valuable. I always end up thinking that almost all films are good and that I should just pick one and stick with it. Barry Schwartz has written a whole book on the paradox of choice and why more is less.
But I live in Scandinavia and in winter I might often need a tripod if I only had EI 64. With HP5+ I could have EI 200 and with Delta 3200 I could have EI 800. The cost of film is not irrelevant, and Kentmere films are maybe as good as FP/HP if exposed properly …. it is a paradox of choice.
3. The same goes for the developer. In the past I have used D-76 1:1 a lot. This is metol and sulfite (+) like in D-23 and Thornton/Stoeckler. I have a couple of packages of XT-3 for 1 liter solution and many here seem to find almost equivalent to D-76. I don’t expose many films and one package of XT-3 could do 4 rolls if using it 1:1. I also have Rodinal. And I could refrain from dumping the DD-X as I have Delta 3200 in the freezer.
For now, I will stick with FP4+ and the Thornton developer and fokus on the interesting images in front of me as well as my exposure. Sunny 16 is easier than I remember, so no auto on the Mamiya. It is joyful slow contemplative photography.
And then, afterwards, I need to decide what to do with the negatives.
Also, I would like to do a quick re-read of the ‘Beyond’ book. It has been many years; I recall something about the 18% card actually not being in the ‘middle’, a simple system for determining exposure and how contrasty a scene is (using an incident meter), how ‘0.1 above F&B’ is variable and how many zones there is in a print. It was also very technical and maybe the deviation-errors in my processes eliminate the potential benefits of any of the finer details in that book.