5yr old Prosumer video camera vs GoPro?

I am only a couple days out on a trip where I will be filming in underwater caves. I am less interested in cinematic film than having flat but well-lit film that I can use for my research, specifically I will be extracting stills from the video at regular intervals. I have two camera options, all set up and ready to go, and until now, I haven't had the lighting that I will be using to compare the two. Now, my first couple runs (indoors) actually seem to be looking better from the action cam.

I am looking for help deciding whether my older video camera is worth trying to use or if more modern action cams are better. Specifically, is there reason to believe that a camera that is 5 yrs old will be significantly worse off in low light than a new action camera, despite having a larger sensor? Are there other advances in the low-budget action cam market that have brought them ahead of my canon that was once such hot stuff in low light? I'm clearly not very knowledgeable about photography or the technology in cameras, any comments would be very much appreciated. Any tips about how to maximize the low-light performance of either setup would also be fantastic. If the answer saves me from lugging my cannon and housing, that would be nice, but also very disappointing because I have spent a lot on this camera rig.

Here are my options:

Cameras:

1) Canon Xa10 with Light&Motion Bluefin housing and wet wide angle lens

2) GoPro 3+ silver

4) Garmin Ultra 30 action cam (basically a gopro 5 competitor)

Lighting:

1) Light & Motion 3000 video lights (2)

2) Light & Motion 1200 flood/spot lights (2)

3) Light and Motion Pro video 8000 (1)

GoPros adjust color balance almost continuously. Thus the colors of consecutive shots might not match each other, especially if you are shooting footage in caverns, where there might big illumination changes in the cavern zone. If you are shooting in the actual cave area (beyond daylight), the color balance issues are less significant, however, assuming that the cave walls are of similar color. If continuity in color is important for your research, I would select the XA10.

Thank you both. Color isn't very important, and I will be about 50/50 in the cavern/cave zones.

I took some test footage on a dark night with both and the canon produces some very good stills from the video because it can shoot at 100, 250, 500+ shutter speed. The Garmin gets up to 96. The canon also has a true wide angle lens, while the Garmin has the typical digital stretched fisheye thing for wider angle. Unless someone can help me a bit more to rule out the use of the canon, I'll be using both. I will continue to be grateful for any further comments.

Canon hands down for still image IQ., lens quality and overall utility.

Bill

You're not interested in the same type of "quality" that most videographers are, so I would base this decision much more on whether you can successfully extract stills from the footage. The action cam may have problems with rolling shutter, lack of control over settings, and inconsistency in footage. If any of that is going to kill your comparison between images then the Canon may be a better bet. What happens when you bump the ISO on the Canon - are grainy images usable for your research?

Thanks for the comments. I decided the canon would be the better bet, but then my dive buddy had a canon 5D mark iii...so...my camera never came out of its case. Now my problem is downsizing awesome data for processing and finding a grant that will buy me a 5D and housing.

Thanks again for the comments.