The invention relates to a method for determining a height position of an object (12) at a lateral first location of the object (12) by means of a microscope (10), which images the object (12) with a point spread function along a z-direction corresponding to the height direction, comprising the steps of imaging the object (12) by means of the microscope (10) in the far field and determining a far field intensity, calculating a maximum intensity expected at the first location by multiplying the far field intensity (IW) by a predefined scaling factor, partially confocally imaging the object (12) at the first location with the focus at a measurement position in the z-direction which lies in the depth of field range, and determining a partially confocal intensity of the partially confocal imaging at the first location, calculating the intensity corresponding to the point spread function (at the first location) by forming a difference between the partially confocal intensity and a product of the far field intensity and a predefined combination factor, calculating the z-coordinate of the focus at which the point spread function is a maximum, using a previously known form of the point spread function, the calculated intensity corresponding to the point spread function and the calculated expected maximum intensity, and using the z-coordinate as the height position of the object (12) at the first location.