I will describe from two modern near-IR surveys the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and the FourStar Galaxy Evolution (zFourGe) survey. The size and depth (K=25 AB mag) of these surveys now allows us to measure greatly improved photometric redshifts, structure properties, stellar masses, and star formation rates for galaxies at 1<z<4.   I will use the data from these moderns surveys to constrain the formation of disk galaxies like the Milky Way.  I will discuss correlations between star-formation activity and morphology in distant galaxies, including constraints on environmental influences at z~1.5-2. I will also describe searches with these data for rare objects, including z~7 candidates and very late-type Galactic brown dwarfs.