A method for camera processing using a camera application programming interface (API) is described. A processor executing the camera API may be configured to receive instructions that specify a use case for a camera pipeline, the use case defining at least one or more processing engines of a plurality of processing engines for processing image data with the camera pipeline, wherein the plurality of processing engines includes one or more of fixed-function image signal processing nodes internal to a camera processor and one or more processing engines external to the camera processor. The processor may be further configured to route image data to the one or more processing engines specified by the instructions and return the results of processing the image data with the one or more processing engines to the application.