A systematic investigation of photoconductive (ΔG) and photoelectromagnetic (PEM) properties of lead iodide is reported. The samples show different polytypic modifications or different stoichiometry. The results, compared with different theoretical models, show that the phototransport properties are not affected by the polytypism but depend on doping; furthermore the sublinear dependences of the measured effects on incident light intensity suggest the occurrence of trapping effects. The application of a new phototransport model accounts for these experimental results and allows the evaluation of the lifetimes.