What the best practice for shooting sports in low light? I shoot my son's basketball games in a school gymnasium, and the lighting there is sub-optimal to say the least. In order to shoot at 1/800 s (and with my f4 zoom lens), I either have to shoot at ISO 2500 or even ISO 3200 and get properly exposed (but noisy) images, or else shoot at ISO 1600 and underexpose the images (which I then "fix" in Lightroom). I feel like shooting at ISO 1600 and achieving dark images that I fix in post processing makes a sharper and less noisy image, but am I misunderstanding something about this trade-off?
Each camera model is going to be different as far as noise. If you feel using a lower ISO and just adjusting in post gets you cleaner and sharper image, then, you've found your answer. :)
Just for a for-fun blind test comparison (and maybe even confirmation), why don't you post up 2 images that were shot in similar lighting conditions using the 2 methods and post process as you normally would. Don't forget to strip the exif data before posting so we can't peek. :)