Optical diffraction tomography (ODT) applied to measurement of optical microelements is limited by low dynamic range, i.e., only objects with small deviations of refractive-index distribution can be measured. Therefore in this paper the limitations and errors of ODT are investigated throughout extensive numerical experiments. It is shown that these errors can be reduced by introduction of additional numerical focusing in the tomographic reconstruction algorithm. Additionally, new tomographic reconstruction algorithm using back propagation in reference medium for optical microelements measurement with known design is proposed. This hybrid reconstruction algorithm allows significant extension of ODT applicability in measurement of elements having large deviations of refractive-index distribution.