What are some good tips for taking pictures?

just tips to help make my photography better. i got a new camera. a fugifilm S700 7.1 megapixel and 10x optical zoom

Well, first, get to know your camera, and its manual. Just shoot within its engineered specifications. If you try to work outside those, you will have a lot of aggravation. Basically, make sure you have plenty of light, dont get too close to your subject, and keep your camera still when shooting. Tripods come in handy. They will help you a lot.

While learning, try to not just pop the camera to your eye, and click the shutter. Think about what you want the photo to look like, and what you need to do to setup the shot. Change location, camera settings, etc... When you learn to make your shot, you will get more pride and enjoyment from the pics. Once you get your shot set up, take several shots, changing your camera settings, or shot perspective, and see what works, and the differences the changes make. You might like one of the adjustments more than your original setup.

Shoot things that you enjoy. When you find something, find a way to shoot it that is different than just getting it in frame. Compose your shot differently. Shoot from different angles and directions. Move the subject around in the frame, catch some foreground or background, for secondary subjects.

Such as: Shooting a flower. Dont place the flower in the middle of the frame, move it around, and include any items that might give the flower some perspective. Or, instead of standing over the flower, drop the camera to ground level and shoot up, include blue sky, the mcdonalds sign, or whatever.

You can shoot buildings. Instead of shooting from a 90 degree angle to the building, Move to the side to change the angle. Move up alongside the building, step away a couple of feet, and shoot it.

Shoot both landscape and portrait style perspectives. Even somewhere in between.

And have fun.

let the "theme"or the subject be at ease....u know if u r takin pics of pple then let them be casual..

I have that camera it takes amazing shots doesn't it? It also has an amazing flash aswell as macro and super macro.

Composition is the key.

You should ask yourself 3 basic questions before ever pushing the shutter button.
1) What is the subject, or theme I want this picture to be about?
2) How can I focus attention on my subject and draw the viewer's eye to it?
3) Have I simplified? Have I included only what draws attention to my subject? and have I eliminated everything that is non-essential or distracting?

Look outside the viewfinder before snapping a picture. You might see a great picture of someone chilling on their lawn drinking a margarita, and say hey this portrays just what I want it to, relaxation. Take the picture and get it printed only to realize that hey s/he has a tree branch growing out of their heads. Why didn't you see it in the view finder? Because your camera more than likely keeps your aperture wide open to allow the most light in during focusing, and then only closes it down just before the picture is taken. This gives you the minimum depth-of-field. Unfortunately alot of new cameras do not have a button on them to allow you to close down your aperture to see what will really be seen in the final picture.