Horst Faas, a prizewinning combat photographer who carved out new standards for covering war with a camera and became one of the world's distinguished photojournalists in nearly a half-century with the Associated Press, died on Thursday. He was 79. A native of Germany who joined the AP there in 1956, Mr. Faas photographed wars, revolutions, the Olympic Games, and events between. But he was best known for covering Vietnam, where he was severely wounded in 1967 and won four major photo awards, including the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes.