I don't know how good you need your photo's to look, but I have had good luck with photoview 360 and it is included with Solidworks.
Individuals who cannot afford a render product for budgetary reasons or who want an open source product have used Blender. See http://www.blender.org As with virtually all of this sort of software, there is a learning curve. If the software is for you alone, Blender might be a solution. If it is for corporate use that is a different story. If the company is asking you to create photo real imagery from their designs, then they need to step up to the plate and afford to give you the tools to do the job they're asking you to do. IMHO. billyb http://www.b2-design.biz
