Portable flooring to give carpet a hard surface for studio shoots?

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connersz

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Sorry for the strange question but basically I'm a mobile portrait photographer and use a paper backdrop roll in peoples houses. It's great when they have a hard floor but sometimes it's carpet and that means the backdrop will ripple, rip etc. without doing something about it.

At the moment I use these MDF boards which are quite big to lay on the floor. They work very well but are big and heavy (weight is the biggest issue here) and I'm starting to get irritated by them.

Does anyone use or know of any other solution that would work well, be lighter and as a bonus; pack away smaller?

There are some issues with using DIY approaches to this. The boards need to be quite big or have a seriously good way of connecting to each other because things like click together floor boards will "ripple" on carpet. The whole lot needs to be setup very quickly as well.
 
My mate has a portable hard dance floor he is selling! It's goes together like tiling
 
Loft boards? They are tongue and groove chip board and so are not particularly light, but they are cheap.

B&Q sell them normally for about £7 for a pack of 3. This gives you about 1.2m x .975m (roughly 1sqm)

Anything less substantial is unlikely to make much of a difference.
 
kendo1 said:
Loft boards? They are tongue and groove chip board and so are not particularly light, but they are cheap.

B&Q sell them normally for about £7 for a pack of 3. This gives you about 1.2m x .975m (roughly 1sqm)

Anything less substantial is unlikely to make much of a difference.
Click to expand...
I have looked into these things but the issue with chipboard is it makes a mess with the thin boards they move like a 'wave' when placed on carpet and walked on. They would also take a while to put together in my opinion. Similar issues to the laminate flooring really.
 
connersz said:
I have looked into these things but the issue with chipboard is it makes a mess with the thin boards they move like a 'wave' when placed on carpet and walked on. They would also take a while to put together in my opinion. Similar issues to the laminate flooring really.
Click to expand...

They slot together in about two seconds and are 325mm wide.
At 1.2m long they also fit in a car
 
kendo1 said:
They slot together in about two seconds and are 325mm wide.
At 1.2m long they also fit in a car
Click to expand...
I would need more than 20 of them to fulfill the space I need plus like I mentioned there's still issues with them bending around and leaving splinters over peoples carpet.
 
You can get 8' x 2' tongue and groove boards, but the bigger they are the heavier they are.
Put a dust sheet down first. Howdens do a 12 ft x 12 ft for £4.

Anything bigger than suggested and you will need a van or a roof rack and two guys to move them.
 
How about Laminate Floor Tiles

I used them to do my kitchen floor. Before I started I laid them out on the living room carpet to plan the kitchen, they clipped together well & felt solid on the carpet :)
 
Ikea do a square of clear(ish) plastic flooring, doesnt clip together but it is fairly light and robust, I have it on my wooden floorboards as a protector against my office chair rollers/castors.
 
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