3DS Max and Lightwave are very popular also Softimage and Blender is a free one.

My advice get the demo's or PLE in maya's case and try some tuts to see which one works best for you.

Regardless of cost you want a program you feel comfortable with or feel comfortable learning. Also note you should develope an online presence in forums such as this one ask the same questions.

I started using max but found moving around in it kind of awkward maya took me about 20 seconds to realise using it just felt more comfortable the huge amount of buttons was still confusing but I generally regarded it as feeling more professional and intuitive.

Oh and always get blender it's free and your able to produce stuff and sell it commercially so why the hell not!

Adam