A parfocal lens is a lens that stays in focus when magnification/focal length is changed.

There is inevitably some amount of focus error, but small enough to be considered insignificant. Parfocal microscope objectives stay in focus when magnification is changed; i.e., if the microscope is switched from a higher power objective (e.g., 40) to a lower power objective (e.g., 10), the object stays in focus.
Angular resolution or 'spatial resolution' describes the resolving power of any image-forming device such as an optical or radio telescope, a microscope, a camera, or an eye

Microscope
The resolution R (here measured as a distance, not to be confused with the angular resolution of a previous subsection) depends on the angular aperture :

where NA

= sin.[4]

Here NA is the numerical aperture, is half the included angle of the lens, which depends on the diameter of the lens and its focal length, is the refractive index of the medium between the lens and the specimen, and is the wavelength of light illuminating or emanating from (in the case of fluorescence microscopy) the sample. It follows that the NAs of both the objective and the condenser should be as high as possible for maximum resolution. In the case that both NAs are the same, the equation may be reduced to:

The practical limit for is about 70. In an air objective or condenser this gives a maximum NA of 0.95. In a high resolution oil immersion lens the maximum NA is typically 1.45, when using immersion oil with a refractive index of 1.52. Due to these limitations, the resolution limit of a light microscope using visible light is about 200 nm. Given that the shortest wavelength of visible light is blue ( = 450 nm),

Oil immersion objectives can have practical difficulties due to their shallow depth of field and extremely short working distance, which calls for the use of very thin (0.17mm) cover slips, or, in an inverted microscope, thin glass-bottomed Petri dishes.

However, resolution below this theoretical limit can achieved using a diffraction technique called 4Pi_STED_microscopy. By destructively focusing two beams on a point source, objects as small as 30nm have been resolved.[5]

Oil immersion objectives

From the above it is understood that oil between the specimen and the objective lens improves the resolving power by a factor 1/n. Objectives specifically designed for this purpose are known as oil immersion objectives. Oil immersion objectives are used only at very large magnifications that require high resolving power. Objectives with high power magnification have short focal lengths, facilitating the use of oil. The oil is applied to the specimen (conventional microscope), and the stage is raised, immersing the objective in oil. (In inverted microscopes the oil is applied to the objective). The refractive indices of the oil and of the glass in the first lens element are nearly the same, which means that the refraction of light will be small upon entering the lens (the oil and glass are optically very similar). Oil immersion objectives are designed with this in mind, and do not perform well without oil, because in this case there will be much reflection of light at the glass/air interface. Using the objective without oil invalidates the corrections, which assume the presence of oil. Nevertheless, in situations in which not maximal clarity but a closer general view is preferred (for instance, where magnifications must be changed back and forth during the observation of a delicately mounted slide), the oil can be skipped at the cost of image sharpness. One usually employs oil immersion only on fixed specimens. While it is possible to use the oiled objective on temporary mounts, any motion of the slide relative to the objective typically moves the cover slip and disturbs the objects being observed.
#6

The high power objective is used for view microscopic cells such as bacteria. The low power objective is used to view larger cells such as fungi. With the low power objective, bacteria just look like specks. The advantage is that you are able to see the entire cell of the fungus, not just an extreme close up as you would see with the high power objective.
Resolution. One of the great advantages the light microscope allows is that it greatly increases our power of resolution. Thus, it enables us to observe structures on the order of the size of cells. This level of observation is obviously very important in biology, since the cell is the fundamental unit of life. Resolution may be defined as the ability to see fine detail. Resolution is quantified in terms of the least distance between two points at which they appear distinct or seperate, rather than as a single blurred object. The resolution possible with the light microscope is finite. Ultimately, it is limited and determined by the physical property of light known as wavelength. Since the electron microscope uses electrons instead of light, and the wavelength of the electron is much less than that of light, much greater resolution is possible with the electron microscope. In the following table there is a comparison of maximum resolution possible with the unaided human eye, the light microscope, and the electron microscope.