@grizzler said:
..., I need something that will get me from A to B without too much difficulty.
My suggestions would be:
Look for a renderer that is under current and ongoing development. These are more likely to offer decent documentation and active user forums, as well as optimizations for today's hardware.
Once you've found a renderer to try, go to youtube and/or vimeo and look for video tutorials made with that particular renderer software. So, search on youtube for "XYZ renderer tutorial" or something like that. Seeing someone work through the selections while setting up a render session can be much more helpful that reading through poorly worded, overly technical documentation. You usually have to view multiple tutorials in order to 'catch' tips, suggestions and explanations for the arcane stuff that is inevitable in rendering software. Rendering software is full of technical jargon that sounds like complete and impenetrable gibberish to a rendering newbie--it's a technical subject all its own and it's tough to get a basic footing in it.
Perhaps start first with truly free rendering software, like Kerkythea or LuxRender or Blender, since there is no artificial time limit on your use of the software. That will give you plenty of time to search for understandable tutorials and to practice at rendering. Lots of the knowledge you gain will transfer into other rendering software later on if you decide to then go for a licensed software.