Ian Grant
Subscriber
This seems like a lot of words that are very delicately trying to sidestep a lack of experience and properly rigorous testing. I can also see your methodology producing a lot of horrible to print negatives, requiring a high grade to set the shadows sensibly, with some painfully tricky dodging - and that's before dealing with getting the highlights where they need to go. Masking should not need to be routine - especially with the sort of thing you propose photographing.
By excessive use of N-, all you are doing is making your life harder than it needs to be. All you want is to straighten out the film curve just enough to get as much of the highlights as needed on a decently linear portion of the curve - knowing that you also need to still be able to print the shadows hard enough that they still look 'right', thus too much underdevelopment is equally to be avoided.
And if you're using an Epson flatbed as a comparator, all you're doing is comparing its sensor noise/ aliasing response. Not much use as an analytical tool. Better to make a few prints in the darkroom and see if by slightly tweaking the overall contrast in printing you can match the results of the differences in negative processing. I can think of many negatives which after persuading on to paper a grade or more harder than 'correct' look dramatically crisper and sharper - all without wasted efforts at the developing stage.
I'm rather inclined to agree with you. The internet has allowed a lot of hype about stand development and minimal agitation, that's not to say there may not be uses but it's not a coincidence that no well known photographers use these techniques and it seems to be only amateurs experimenting. (The only exception is Steve Sherman).
Ian