title: Setting ylim in pyplot does not work, but xlim does
body: <p>I'm making a series of plots that have to have the same axis scale for comparison in a gif. When I go to set limits on the colorbar and x axis, the limits work. But they do not for the y axis. </p>
  
  <p>I am working with matplotlib 1.4.3, and Python 2.7.12 :: Anaconda custom (64-bit) </p>
  
  <p>Here is the plotting routine (this is part of a while loop that goes through my data):</p>
  
  <pre><code>plt.figure()
  plt.scatter(MSTAR, radii, c=MU_MEAN_MODEL, cmap='YlGnBu', vmin=17, vmax=22.5, alpha=0.6, marker='.')
  plt.errorbar(median_masses, median_radii, xerr=m_mass_errs,
               yerr=median_radius_errs, color='firebrick', alpha=1, fmt='.')
  bar = plt.colorbar()
  bar.set_label("MU_MEAN_MODEL")
  plt.xlabel("M*")
  plt.yscale('log')                                                                                                                                              
  plt.axis([10.6, 12.4, 0, 11])
  plt.ylabel("Physical radius (kpc)")
  plt.title("Redshift " + str(zbin) + ", SPMOD cut not applied")
  plt.savefig("filename" + str(i) + ".png")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have tried replacing <code>plt.axis([10.6, 12.4, 0, 11])</code> with</p>
  
  <pre><code>axes = plt.gca()                                                                                                                                                   
  axes.set_xlim([10.6, 12.4])                                                                                                                                        
  axes.set_ylim([0, 11])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and</p>
  
  <pre><code>plt.ylim([0, 11])                                                                                                                                                   
  plt.xlim([10.6, 12.4])
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Neither has shown results. See an animation of the plots I am getting below.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/323Mb.gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/323Mb.gif" alt="Animation of plot sequence, illustrating y axis rescaling"></a></p>