I think you are looking for this tmp <- abs(rnorm(100, s=8)) ltmp <- log(tmp) plot(ltmp, type="h", yaxt="n", main="what you want") exp(par("usr")[3:4]) par("yaxp")[1:2] logticks <- axTicks(2, axp=c(10^c(-1,3),3), log=TRUE) axis(2, at=log(logticks), labels=logticks) plot(tmp, type="h", log="y", main="standard")