ggplot stat_bin2d plot with heavily skewed data

Question

I have a set of data that is heavily right skewed. This creates a problem when doing a stat_bin2d plot. The result is most of the graph is dark blue with only a few points are a different color. I'd like to have the graph use the entire color range a bit more.

An example of the problem is from the ggplot documentation direction.

ggplot(diamonds, aes(carat, price)) + stat_bin2d()

The resulting graph has only a few positions that are something other than dark blue.

How can I adjust the mapping of the color range to show more detail? I know I can set the limits, but this doesn't exactly fit the bill as it makes anything outside the limits be gray.

ggplot(diamonds, aes(carat, price)) + stat_bin2d() + scale_fill_gradient(limits=c(1, 100))

Something like this with they gray appropriately colored too.

Answer 1

The quick answer is

ggplot(diamonds, aes(carat, price)) + stat_bin2d() +
  scale_fill_gradient(trans="log10")

EDIT: A longer answer is that you probably want some kind of transformation of the color or fill scale. For built-in transformations refer to the "See Also" section of

library(scales)
?trans

If none of the built-in transformation is suitable then you can construct your own. See the answers to this SO question about transforming color scales for an example showing how to do this.