v36.0.0 regression fetching container logs

What happened (please include outputs or screenshots):

As of upgrading kubernetes to 36.0.0, something looks wrong in read_namespaced_pod_log

What you expected to happen:

Getting log lines out of my containers

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible):

            since_secs = 600
            l = pod_api.read_namespaced_pod_log(namespace="foo-ns",
                                                name="foo-pod",
                                                container="foo-container",
                                                follow=False,
                                                timestamps=True,
                                                since_seconds=600)
            print("logs first chars:", l[:100])

Running with kubernetes 35.0.0, last line logged would say

logs first chars: 2026-05-25T07:52:34.381816807Z [25/05/2026 07:52:34] [MainThread] xxxx

Switching to 36.0.0. Same code outputs:

logs first chars: b'2026-05-24T15:57:23.246955706Z [24/05/2026 15:57:23] [MainThread] 

Got confused at first, try to cast it or decode it into a string .... but no: this is a string already. That b' are just the two first characters of my string.

Setting timestamps=False doesn't change anything, I'm still getting that b' prefix.

Anything else we need to know?:

Environment:

• Kubernetes version (kubectl version): v1.31.14
• Python version (python --version) 3.12.13
• Python client version (pip list | grep kubernetes) 36.0.0