Microscopy for naturalists

A couple of comments made and seen today about microscopy.
I had asked Barbara/Spot about it in a comment a while ago and have been looking at kit, eg at NBHS. Today, there were comments from two regular contributors - Hannah (Jins Weenus) and Mark Wilson - at this observation

and then I saw this link in a forum post by Derek. Microscopy of spores, hyphae, cystidia, trama, to identify fungi
.
I’d love if others who make use of such technology could share their knowledge on the different levels of microscope technology and what they can achieve in their own observations. Any views?