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Omniscient Viewpoint
The body lay face down in the shallow river. Minnows, darting between the reeds like quicksilver, played hide and seek among floating strands of the intruder's blond hair, brushing against his well-manicured fingers and the excellent fabric of his tailored suit. The mist over the water was thick now, sometimes billowing in the slight breeze, making the body appear to be moving. But it wasn't moving. It would never move again.
In omniscient viewpoint, it is possible to enter the thoughts of one or more characters, while also looking at them from the outside. In Shadow of a Doubt I moved into and out of one character's viewpoint in a single paragraph in order to make the suspense more subjective:
A young black waitress, carrying a tray loaded with beer glasses, was the first to see the two men enter the lounge. Both wore trench coats. Both had semiopaque stockings over their heads. The waitress stared blankly at them, thinking how strange they looked, their features flat and unrecognizable, their hair invisible, their ears making odd-shaped bumps at the sides of their heads. Then she saw the guns pointing at her--matte black guns, handguns, two to each man.
The crash of the loaded tray falling to the floor brought every head around. A ripple of paralyzing fear ran through the room as the patrons' eyes followed the woman's fixed gaze.
When overused, omniscient viewpoint can be annoying because the reader begins to wonder just who is saying all this, but used in small doses, it can be effective and can enhance the story.
It's impossible to make rigid rules about which viewpoint to use, and when and how often you should change it, if at all. The only advice I can give you with any authority is to study the various approaches to viewpoint carefully, so that you will always know which one you are using and why. Use only those viewpoints that are important to the story. e.g. If a couple of your main characters are enjoying a romantic dinner, don't include the waiter's thoughts, unless they are a vital component of the plot.
Determining which character will tell your story is an important decision, because it shows readers whom you want them to root for. For this reason, in certain kinds of novels, it's best to stay only in the main character's point of view. Not only does the writer in effect become the main character, but the reader becomes the main character as well. In a story about a woman in jeopardy, if the author keeps in mind at all times that the woman is the viewpoint character, this is her story, the reader feels her fear, her anger, her helplessness; recognizes her courage, and roots for her to make it safely through to the end and achieve her goal.
A good question to ask yourself when you are plotting your story is, whose story is this? Which character will the reader care about most? Who has the most to lose or win? Who is going to have the most internal conflict because of this? That is the person who should be the viewpoint character for the major part of the story.